Lufthansa Cargo posts record tonnage in 2011

Lufthansa Cargo boosted tonnage to record levels in 2011.

The cargo airline carried approximately 1.9m tonnes of freight and mail in 2011, an increase of 5% compared to 2010.

The airline raised capacity over the twelve months by 8.6%. The company attributed the increase to the integration, since the second half of 2010, of the capacities of aircraft in the fleet of Austrian Airlines and the expansion to eight Boeing 777 freighters in the fleet of the AeroLogic joint venture. In an increasingly difficult market environment, Lufthansa Cargo lifted sales of revenue freight-tonne km by 6.5%, so that capacity utilisation reached 69.5%; a slight decline from 70.9% in 2010.

"Especially in our German home market, we made full use of strong export demand to gain market shares. On the other hand, the economic climate in the important Asian airfreight market became increasingly bleak over the course of the year and led to over-capacities and increased competition for all airlines in the airfreight industry," observed Lufthansa Cargo CEO and Chairman Karl Ulrich Garnadt.

"Lufthansa Cargo is excellently positioned in all growth markets. We will stay on our successful course and adjust our capacities flexibly in line with demand," commented Garnadt. Of crucial importance for the company's future, however, is the impending ruling by the highest Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig on the number of permissible night flights in Frankfurt. "Germany profits from a strong and successful airfreight industry, which must not be decoupled for several hours, daily, from global trade flows. A night-flight ban would deal a severe blow to the entire industry and threaten thousands of jobs in Germany, not only in the logistics industry" concluded Garnadt.


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