Lufthansa, IAG, Air France-KLM fleets: Lufthansa Group largest

Lufthansa Group has comfortably the largest fleet among Europe's big three legacy airline groups. According to the CAPA Fleet Database, its total of 734 aircraft is 157 more than that of IAG, whose fleet of 577 is 43 more than Air France-KLM's 534 aircraft.

(Note that only those aircraft in service with airlines that are majority owned and controlled by each group are included in the above numbers.)

Lufthansa Group's superior overall fleet numbers are based mainly on its short and medium haul strength, reflected in larger numbers of narrowbody and regional aircraft. Lufthansa itself is also the biggest individual airline brand by fleet among the big three legacy groups (but its fleet is smaller than Ryanair's fleet).

Lufthansa Group's Eurowings and IAG's Vueling (in that order) are the biggest LCC subsidiary airline brands - considerably larger than Air France-KLM's Transavia.

Air France-KLM plans to grow its capital expenditure at the fastest rate of the three this year but has a much smaller order book for new aircraft than the other two. For all three groups, capital expenditure is at, or close to, all-time high levels in 2019. Moreover, trends in capex and profit margins are starting to diverge.