European Cargo Airlines facing growth slowing in 2018
Global general market slowdown has resulted in freight traffic slowing down for the major European Cargo Airlines.
Both Air France KLM and Lufthansa have seen smaller cargo volumes growth than the previous year, while IAG reported a decline.
Lufthansa registered a 0.8 per cent increase in traffic last year to 10.9 billion revenue cargo tonne kms, which is down on the 7.4 per cent improvement it recorded in 2017, when the market enjoyed a resurgence thanks to inventory re-stocking and e-commerce growth.
IAG declining volumes
It was a similar story at Air France KLM where it saw cargo traffic increase by 0.7% to 8.6bn revenue tonne kms, which is behind 2017’s 1.9% improvement. Its load factor for the year stood at 60.3% compared with 59.9% in 2017 as it adjusted its freighter fleet during the year.
IAG had an even tougher year on the cargo front as it saw demand decrease by 0.9 per cent to 5.7 billion cargo tonne kms, with a decrease at British Airways offsetting improvements at Iberia and Aer Lingus.
