European cargo monthly: Demand picks up as peak season approaches

European airlines saw cargo demand ramp up in September as the peak season started to get underway.
The latest data from airlines based in the European region show that demand was up across the board in September compared with August.
In fact, Lufthansa, IAG and Finnair all had their busiest September since Air Cargo News records began in 2011.
At Frankfurt-hubbed Lufthansa there was a 6% year-on-year increase in demand in September to 938m revenue cargo tonne kms.
As well as it being the best September in terms of demand for the airline since at least 2011, it was also its best for cargo load factors as this measure reached 68.7% against 66% last year.
The one negative for the German carrier is that demand growth for the month was slightly behind its year-to-date performance of 7.8%.
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IAG Cargo also had a good performance as demand in September increased by 8.7% year on year to reach 487m cargo tonne kms.
This was the airline group’s best September on ACN records and was also ahead of growth over the first nine months of 6.1%.
At Air France KLM the picture was not quite so strong – the Franco-Dutch group saw cargo demand for September increase by 0.5% on last year to 715m revenue tonne kms, while capacity was up by 0.6% and its load factor was flat at 59.2%.
While it is the seventh year-on-year demand increase in a row, it does lag behind year-to-date performance of 1.4%.
At Finnair, performance continued to benefit from the phasing in of larger A350 widebody capacity.
Demand at the airline increased 15.7% year on year to 94.7m revenue tonne kms, while its load factor increased to 70.8% against 67.7% last year.
Growth is ahead of its year-to-date average of 7.6%, although performance at the start of the year was dragged down by pilot training ahead of the arrival of the new aircraft and the implementation of a new cargo software system.
“The strongest growth markets year-on-year were Japan, Germany, Sweden, Hong Kong and the main Chinese destinations,” it said.
“Finnair’s total cargo capacity also included three weekly freighter flights between Helsinki and Brussels, operated by DHL as well as cargo space rented on Japan Airlines’ daily flights between Tokyo and Helsinki.”
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