Lufthansa Cargo’s cautious optimism for 2015

Lufthansa Cargo carried 1.7m tonnes of freight and mail in 2014, a year-on-year decline of 2.7 per cent, although the leading German carrier maintained its capacity utilisation with a cargo load factor of 69.7 per cent.
Faced by “tough competition,” the cargo airline focused on “a flexible and demand-driven management of its capacities with the aim of boosting yields”.
Lufthansa invested in its network, adding Milan in Italy, Lagos in Nigeria and the Tunisian capital Tunis to its destinations. In addition, business with key sectors like the oil and gas industry "played a stronger role" for Lufthansa Cargo.
Since November, it has been offering a weekly non-stop B777F flight from Houston in the US to Stavanger (Norway), linking two important centres of the oil and gas industry.
“Competition on the market was very fierce again last year”, says Peter Gerber, chairman of the executive board and chief executive of Lufthansa Cargo.
“The fact that we continue to fly in this environment with an unchanged high capacity utilisation rate, testifies to the success of our network management and strength of our global offerings and sales.”
Gerber’s forecast for the coming year is cautiously optimistic: “Despite the still difficult framework conditions, Lufthansa Cargo pursued its future programme Lufthansa Cargo 2020 with great determination in the past financial year.”
A new IT system for cargo handling is being rolled out world-wide, marketing of lucrative express products further reinforced, and preparations for the new air freight terminal in Frankfurt, LCCneo, are in “full swing”.
As another milestone of Lufthansa Cargo 2020, Gerber singled out the launch of a strategic joint venture with All Nippon Airways (ANA) on routes between Japan and Europe.
This is to ensure further growth on the important routes between the two major economic regions.
The economic result for the year 2014 will be announced this March. As already stated, Lufthansa Cargo still assumes that its operating result will be higher than in the previous year.
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