Lufthansa Cargo reports high utilisation in a convincing year 2012

Lufthansa Cargo is still pursuing a successful course. Although tonnage dipped last year, Germany's biggest cargo carrier kept utilisation of its aircraft capacities on a stable level. During the year, Lufthansa Cargo transported slightly more than 1.7 million tonnes of freight and mail, about 8.5 per cent below the year-earlier figure. The decrease is attributable to restrained demand in all traffic regions, to which the Company reacted by sharply scaling back capacity. All in all, the Lufthansa airfreight subsidiary trimmed capacity by more than eight per cent. The cuts enabled the cargo airline to hold utilisation at a very high level over the full twelve-month term: In comparison with the previous year, the cargo load factor even rose marginally to 69.6 per cent.

We had to contend with an extremely difficult market environment in 2012. So we focused firmly on capacity utilisation and the profitability of our freighter routes, emphasised Lufthansa Cargo Chairman and CEO Karl Ulrich Garnadt. 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.

The Cargo chief is looking with assurance to the future: 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. In the autumn of this year, Lufthansa Cargo is awaiting delivery of the first two of five brand-new Boeing 777 freighters on order. The world's most efficient freighter aircraft of its class is integral to the comprehensive Lufthansa Cargo 2020 strategy designed to position the Company as the industry innovation leader.