News / Lufthansa Cargo adds capacity as Asia Pacific ecommerce boosts revenue

Photo - Lufthansa Cargo

30/10/2024

A focus on Asia Pacific helped boost Lufthansa Cargo’s nine-month revenues, although ebit fell significantly.

While overall capacity was up 8% year on year in the nine months to September, the group has added some 13% capacity to Asia Pacific.

And this week, the carrier announced its first direct transpacific flight, from Ho Chi Minh to Los Angeles, via its AeroLogic subsidiary. It now has 50 frequencies to 17 destinations in Asia.

“The growing ecommerce industry in particular is driving this development, to which Lufthansa Cargo is able to respond quickly and flexibly, thanks to its early preparations,” said the airline.

Despite the additional capacity, in part due to the delivery of a 777F as well as more belly space, cargo load factors also managed to rise, by 1.4 percentage points, to 57.2%.

In the nine-month period, traffic revenue for Lufthansa Cargo increased 3%, to €2.11bn ($2.28bn), “mainly due to positive developments in the Asia Pacific region”. Revenue also rose 3%.

However, yields took a hit year on year, falling in all traffic regions and down 8.8% overall. Lufthansa Cargo explained that the previous year had seen “high demand as a result of global supply chain disruptions, combined with limited supply”, especially in the first quarter. It noted that in Q3 24, “yields were 5.1% higher than in the previous year”.

Operating expenses rose 8.8%, in part because of a new labour deal. Ebit fell a large 72% to €52m in January to September.

“Operating and financial performance in the logistics segment declined in the first nine months of 2024 as a result of the challenging market environment in airfreight, as well as strikes in the first quarter; the emerging recovery in the second quarter of 2024 continued. This development was in particular underpinned by strong ecommerce business with Asia, which also led to a shift in capacity from the Americas region to Asia Pacific,” said the group.

Vietnam is not the only new destination in Asia – in July, Lufthansa Cargo added Shenzhen, “to meet the continued strong demand for ecommerce shipments”.

CEO Ashwin Bhat added: “This new freighter connection [Ho Chi Minh to LAX] highlights our commitment to connecting economies by responding to the demand of the rapidly growing economy in Vietnam, which can now be seamlessly connected to the US even faster. This service reinforces our purpose of enabling global business, which is why we are continuously examining the possibilities of establishing new routes and growing in dynamic market environments.”