Covid 19 coronavirus: Lufthansa Airbus A380's Auckland flyover on German repatriation flight

A Lufthansa Airbus A380 gave stranded Germans a good look at a sparkling Auckland as it flew low over the city to farewell the country.

The flight this morning is one of dozens of repatriation flights where airlines that don't usually fly here with aircraft not usually seen in our skies.

Lufthansa is also operating Boeing 747s in the 10-flight rescue mission out of Auckland and Christchurch for thousands of Germans. Air New Zealand is also flying 10 flights this fortnight to get the stranded travellers home.

Flight tracker shows the path the flight took over Auckland City. Photo / Supplied

The 509-seat A380 flew over South Auckland before passing over the city centre en-route to Bangkok where it will refuel and then carry on to Germany.

The airline operated its first service here in 20 years last weekend with its first repatriation flight, a Boeing 747, from Auckland.

The website Simple Flying says that in total, 40 flights will be necessary, two in each direction per rotation, requiring 210 crew.

Fellow German airline Condor has operated a charter out of Christchurch and Austrian and Swiss airlines have picked up passengers in Auckland.

Air New Zealand is also flying repatriation missions for the Dutch government, meeting KLM flights in Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong.

View this post on Instagram

As part of the government repatriation operations, we landed in Auckland on March 26 to bring stranded people home with our D-ABVY. A historic flight! We usually don't fly to this destination, so the 744 is the first Lufthansa aircraft in New Zealand. #WeAreInThisTogether

A post shared by Lufthansa (@lufthansa) on Mar 31, 2020 at 1:00am PDT

Lufthansa has operated a total of 360 special flights to bring people home. These have operated to 77 airports across five continents. This huge effort has helped in excess of 70,000 people return home so far, Simple Flying reports.

The airline is, however, retiring six of its 14-strong A380 fleet as demand for scheduled flights evaporates. It is selling the planes back to Airbus in another sign of trouble for the world's biggest commercial plane.

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website