[210217.EN.AIR] European Airlines' Cargo Volumes in January Show a Mixed Performance

JANUARY saw mixed results cargo results for European airlines, with Lufthansa's volumes up 4.9 per cent year on year to 736 million revenue cargo tonne kilometre and IAG posting an increase of 2.8 per cent to 434 million cargo tonne miles.

However, Air France KLM's cargo traffic fell 1.3 per cent to 659m RTK, and Finnair's volume decreased 10.2 per cent to 58.2m RTK.

Yet, it is difficult to read too much into year on year comparisons in the first two months of the year because of the changing date of the Chinese New Year, when factories in the country shut for around two weeks, reported London's Air Cargo News.

Lufthansa's cargo load factor rose to 65.9 per cent, up from 63.9 per cent in January 2016, marking the best January cargo load factor since 2014.

Demand was flat at Aer Lingus; British Airways' cargo volume rose by 5.5 per cent year on year, but Iberia registered a 7.3 per cent decrease.

IAG attributed January's improved result to a vegetable shortage in the UK caused by a poor crop in Spain and Greece. Shippers turned to the Americas and flew in vegetables to meet demand.

Over at the Air France KLM cargo group, demand was up at Air France and down at KLM. The group saw its cargo load factor decrease to 56.6 per cent from 56.8 per cent last year.

Meanwhile, there was another decrease in cargo traffic at Finnair, although this was once again caused by developments within the company. Finnair's decrease in cargo demand in January came after a 15.7 per cent decline in December when the implementation of a new cargo management system caused problems for the airline.

"Finnair suspended flights to Chongqing as planned between January 11 and May 2, 2017 due to its pilots' A350 training," the airline said. "In addition, there were an extraordinarily high number of cancellations in Asian traffic during the month."

Source : HKSG.