Austrian Cargo falls under LH’s control

AUSTRIAN Cargo will effectively become a subsidiary of Lufthansa Cargo from 1 July, after the two carriers agreed to “merge their global activities”.

Air Cargo News understands the deal will include Lufthansa taking a 75 per cent stake in Austrian Cargo, with the remaining 25 per cent held by the parent airline. This would make it a much closer relationship than that which is in place between Swiss and Lufthansa on the cargo side.

The new Austrian Cargo will be responsible for sales only within Austria, with all other sales operations being taken over by Lufthansa Cargo. Franz Zoechbauer, executive vice-president cargo for Austrian says some of its current overseas sales force will be merged into the nearest Lufthansa Cargo sales team as “Austrian Cargo specialists”.

Austrian Cargo will align its products and processes with Lufthansa Cargo, and use its airwaybills. Plans for the carrier to adopt the iCargo system of IBS have been scrapped in favour of adopting the Lufthansa Cargo IT system, and products such as Austrian’s new coolchain offering, launched only a year ago after extensive research, will be abandoned in favour of their Lufthansa counterparts.

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