Lufthansa’s Airbus A380 D-AMI, affectionately named “Berlin,” has officially made its final journey from a European aircraft boneyard to the scrapper’s yard—but not before finding a new lease on life in miniature form. Aviationtag, a Cologne-based company, has transformed segments of the retired aircraft’s aluminum fuselage into collectible key chains and luggage tags, a process the company calls “upcycling,” giving disused aircraft parts a second life.

“This is your own piece of flight history,” reads the packaging for the Lufthansa A380 tag, commemorating the storied service of the four-engine giant.

First flown at Airbus on November 16, 2011, and delivered to Lufthansa on May 14, 2012, “Berlin” accumulated 25,199 flight hours across 2,590 flights, averaging just under ten hours per journey. The aircraft was parked in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, marking the end of less than eight years of active service.

After its retirement, “Berlin” was sold back to Airbus in October 2023 and later to Setna IO, an international aviation parts distributor, in February 2025. The aircraft was dismantled later that year, with reusable components salvaged to support existing fleets. Airbus no longer produces many spare parts for the A380, which went out of production in 2021, making “cannibalization” of retired planes crucial to keeping remaining aircraft operational.

Lufthansa, which once operated 14 A380s, now maintains eight in service, flying routes from Munich to cities including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Denver, Washington, San Francisco, Mumbai, and New Delhi. The airline plans to operate these remaining A380s into the 2030s, supported in part by parts salvaged from aircraft like “Berlin.”

Aviationtag has already produced 22,000 tags from the fuselage aluminum of “Berlin.” The production process involves manually dismantling, cutting, polishing, and laser engraving aircraft parts, turning them into functional memorabilia for aviation enthusiasts. The company has previously upcycled A380s from Emirates and Etihad, with some tags commemorating specific continents or notable flights.

“Each Aviationtag has thousands of take-offs and landings behind it before it embarks on new journeys,” the company said.

Though the Airbus A380 entered service in 2006, seventy years after the iconic Douglas DC-3, only 251 A380s were manufactured, with fewer than 190 remaining in operation today. Emirates operates the largest fleet, with 116 aircraft still flying.

While the era of the A380 may be winding down, Aviationtag offers enthusiasts a tangible connection to the aircraft’s legacy—one you can carry in your pocket.