Lufthansa Cargo traffic slips back

LUFTHANSA Cargo’s airfreight traffic fell 14.1 per cent in June to 128,000 tons, compared to the same month last year.

The drop will come as a blow to the carrier, which had seen May’s traffic briefly surge up to -9.1 per cent from last year – still in negative territory but an improvement from February’s -24.9 per cent low.

This leaves 2009’s overall traffic at 694,000 tons, down 20.1 per cent. This hit revenues, bringing them down 15.9 per cent from a year ago.

Lufthansa cut capacity 10.4 per cent from June 2008. This resulted in its load factor falling 4.2 per cent to 63.1 per cent.

The Lufthansa group, which includes Swiss World Cargo, recorded June traffic down 14.3 per cent to 144,000 tons, leaving 2009 to date down 19.8 per cent at 788,000 metric tons. Load factor fell 4.2 per cent to down 60 per cent.

The main causes for the slip back was the Americas network, which plummeted 20.8 per cent to 38,000 tons, and the Asia Pacific region, which fell 17 per cent to 39,000 metric tons.

In comparison, both the Middle East and Africa rose six per cent, up to 15,000 tons, balancing out their year-to-date results as unchanged from 2008 at 83,000 metric tons.