Lufthansa's cargo traffic to Asia surges

Lufthansa Cargo, the world's biggest international air freight operator, said traffic in August rose 15 percent from a year ago, driven mainly by growth in European shipments to Asia.

The carrier transported 142,000 metric tons of freight in August, taking traffic for the first eight months of the year to 1.13 million tons, a gain of 10.5 percent on the same period in 2003, Air Cargo World reported.

The higher freight figures were achieved with only a 5 percent increase in capacity, fueling a 5.2 percentage points rise in the load factor, or portion of space filled, to 66.3 percent.

Lufthansa said European shipments jumped 25 percent as capacity on several routes were allocated to a DHL freighter flight to Asia from Bergamo in Italy.

Traffic on routes to and from North and South America rose 10.9 percent and Asian shipments were up 14.9 percent from a year ago.

The strong performance comes two weeks after Lufthansa Cargo unveiled plans to shed 480 jobs, or 10 percent of its payroll, over the next two years as part of a restructuring program aimed at boosting productivity, growth and earnings.

Jean-Peter Jansen, Lufthansa Cargo's chairman, expects the carrier to make a profit this year compared with a loss of 16 million euros ($19.2 million) in 2003. Air Cargo World