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Lufthansa Cargo mulls more Delhi freighter flights, but fears overcapacity

WHILE acknowledging the risk of overcapacity, Lufthansa Cargo is considering adding new freighter flights to Delhi, reports London's Air Cargo News.

Already, Lufthansa freighters fly to Delhi once a week, Hyderabad three times a week, Chennai twice a week, Bengaluru twice a week and Mumbai five times a week.

Lufthansa Cargo would consider increasing frequencies to Delhi, but it is withdrawing two MD-11 freighters from service and also has concerns about overcapacity between Europe and India.

"Our flexibility to deploy additional freighters is limited [given the lay-up of MD-11s]," said Lufthansa Cargo board member Alexis von Hoensbroech.

"We are constantly looking at options and one destination that could need another frequency is Delhi because we only fly there once with a freighter.

"We also fly once per week to Dhaka, although it is Bangladesh, it combines with Delhi and there could be an option to deploy a second weekly frequency, but we have not taken a decision on that, but it would a natural extension," said Mr von Hoensbroech.

"We are generally quite happy with our network, but we have to acknowledge that the competitive pressure in India is getting higher and higher because of the Gulf carriers that are flooding the market with capacity," he said.

Last year, the India market grew by seven per cent and that's a sign of the increasing competition, he said, adding that it was another reason to go slow on putting in another freighter.

"That said, if I look at the most recent figures there is growth again on our own services in India and the best argument for additional frequencies is growth and profitability," he said.

With regards the decision to lay up two freighters, Mr von Hoensbroech said he hoped it would be a temporary measure made for competitive reasons.

One of the freighters was used to cover out-of-action freighters and for charters, while the other was used on scheduled services and its withdrawal resulted in the closure of routes to Chongqing, Quito and Bogota.

Looking at the Indian market, Lufthansa said export tonnage increased by 5.9 per cent last year, while imports were up by 6.7 per cent.

Lufthansa is the fourth largest player on the Europe-India market, although it was the second largest in recent years, with Emirates, Qatar and Etihad leading the pack today.