Lufthansa Cargo transported more than 1.7 million tonnes of freight and mail during 2012, down about 8.5 percent from 2011. The company attributes the decline to “restrained demand in all traffic regions and said it had reacted by sharply scaling back capacity by more than 8 percent.
Lufthansa says the cuts enabled the cargo airline to hold utilization at a high level over the year. In comparison with the previous year, the cargo load factor rose marginally to 69.6 percent.
“We had to contend with an extremely difficult market environment in 2012,” said Lufthansa Cargo Chairman and CEO Karl Ulrich Garnadt. “So we focused firmly on capacity utilisation and the profitability of our freighter routes. Despite the necessary capacity cuts, we further developed our customer services and brought new destinations, such as Detroit, Montevideo or Tel Aviv, into the route network.”
Garnadt expressed optimism about the future, which will include delivery in the fall of the first two of five new Boeing 777 freighters on order.
“We can see green shoots of economic recovery in key airfreight markets. Our flexible approach will allow us to respond fast and purposefully to emergent market opportunities and quickly increase capacity again to accommodate stronger demand.”
