Lufthansa Cargo Volume Jumps 18.3 Percent

Lufthansa carried 18.3 percent more cargo in October than a year ago.

The German airline transported 191,000 metric tons of freight and mail last month, taking traffic in the first 10 months of the year to 1.66 million metric tons, a 19.2 percent increase from the same period in 2009.

The October increase trailed a 20.5 percent jump in September traffic to 177,000 metric tons.

By The Numbers: Air Freight Price Index.

Lufthansa Cargo, the all-cargo unit, boosted October shipments 18.6 percent to 171,000 taking 10 month volume to 1.475 million metric tons, up 19.3 percent from a year earlier.

Lufthansa Cargo's revenue jumped 16.2 percent, substantially exceeding a 12.6 percent growth in capacity while the load factor rose 2.2 percentage points to an "outstanding" 70.5 percent, the airline said.

The Lufthansa group, which includes Swiss World Cargo, boosted Asia/Pacific traffic by 20.1 percent year-on-year to 53,000 metric tons, while volume on the North and South America network climbed 17.9 percent to 57,000 metric tons.

Lufthansa Cargo has boosted capacity for the winter season that began in November. It exploited Japan Air Lines’ exit from all-cargo operations by almost doubling the number of weekly MD-11 freighter flights to Japan to 12 -- seven to Tokyo and five to Osaka.

Air France-KLM increased October cargo traffic 6.4 percent from a year ago on a 2.4 percent increase in capacity. British Airways traffic was up 6.8 percent on a 6.7 percent rise in capacity.

-- Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.