European Cargo Monthly: Peak season starts to tail off in November

European airlines saw air cargo demand tail off in November as the peak season started to wind down.
November’s monthly statistics show that Lufthansa, Air France KLM, IAG and Finnair all saw cargo traffic in November decline compared with a month earlier, although this reflects usual seasonal trends for carriers in this region.
Compared with a year earlier, Lufthansa saw cargo traffic decline by 0.9% year on year to 953m revenue cargo tonne kms – its sixth monthly year-on-year decline in a row.
This is also behind growth over the first 11 months of the year of 0.8%, reflecting a general industry-wide slowdown in cargo volume growth as the year has progressed.
Cargo load factors at the German group slipped to 68.4% from 71.1%.
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At Air France KLM revenue tonne kms for November increased by 0.8% year on year to 765m, its busiest November since 2014.
The increase is roughly in line with an improvement of 0.7% during the first 11 months of the year.
Cargo load factors at the Franco-Dutch group in November were down slightly to 65.2% against 65.3% last year.
At IAG there was a decline of 4.1% year on year in November, with increases at Iberia and Aer Lingus and a decline at British Airways.
Over the first 11 months of the year the airline group has seen cargo traffic decline by 1.2%.
Finally, Finnair bucked the trend with a 14.7% increase in demand to 96.2m revenue tonne kms – its best November on record.
For the year to date, the airline has recorded a 2.5% increase against 2017 levels.
Finnair said the increase was “mostly driven by the strong positive cargo market development in Japan and Sweden. Additionally, favourable development was also visible in our Chinese routes”.
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