News Content

Lufthansa Cargo capacity rises on bellyhold plenty, but demand falls 0.9pc

LUFTHANSA Cargo capacity increased 2.9 per cent in June, driven by a 4.3 per cent rise in passenger sales which made bellyhold space more plentiful but freight demand still fell 0.9 per cent.

"After an exceptionally good start to 2015, we are aware of the challenging market situation again in the second quarter," said Lufthansa Cargo CEO Peter Gerber.

"We are monitoring the market very carefully and can react by adjusting our routes flexibly and quickly to changes in demand. This allows us to meet the demands of our customers while at the same time guaranteeing the profitability of the individual connections."

Lufthansa Cargo is bracing for more monthly declines as the failure of the latest talks to resolve a pay dispute with pilots has raised the prospect of strikes through the summer. The long-running dispute has caused more than a dozen strikes since April 2014, some of which have been directed at Lufthansa Cargo.

Lufthansa Cargo CEO Gerber has also expressed concern that the stock market rout in China could "cripple" the air freight sector.

Overall, the Lufthansa group, which includes Swiss Cargo, saw traffic shrink by 1.6 per cent in June to 156,000 tonnes as a 2.9 per cent increase in volume on its Americas network to 50,000 tonnes was offset by a 4.2 per cent drop in Asia/Pacific traffic to 45,000 tonnes.

Traffic on the usually resilient Middle East/Africa routes fell by 5.2 per cent to 14,000 tonnes.

Lufthansa Cargo continues to outperform its main European rivals, however, as they continue their retreat from freighter operations.

Air France-KLM, Europe's biggest cargo carrier by revenue, carried 5.2 per cent less freight in June compared to a year ago, largely due to a 22 per cent reduction in freighter capacity. International Airlines Group's (IAG) traffic declined 6.1 per cent as a 9.4 per cent fall at British Airways outweighed an 11.1 per cent increase at its recovering Spanish partner Iberia.

Global air freight demand has been slowing in recent months as economies stutter, after a promising start to the year, figures from air industry association IATA show, Reuters reports.