Lufthansa Cargo increases India flights to increase freight traffic share

Lufthansa Cargo is increasing capacity to India and looking for partnerships with other airlines to grow its share in the fast growing market.

Lufthansa Cargo has 10 per cent share of India's international freight traffic and is seeing 9 per cent growth in the market in 2017, which is higher than its overall 6-7 per cent growth the cargo division is witnessing globally.

It has increased weekly frequency to Mumbai to four from three flights earlier to cater to the growth. "We have a strong presence in India and we expect our market share to increase. India has been among one of our fastest growing markets this year," said Peter Gerber, chief executive officer of Lufthansa Cargo.

In addition to its 10 weekly freighter flights to India covering Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, the airline offers belly space on passenger aircraft, which operate to India.

Apart from increasing its flights the airline is also focused on opening new customer segments, digitisation and expanding partnerships.

"We are always looking for partners and potential opportunities but at the moment there is nothing concrete," Gerber said in response to query on partnerships with Indian carriers.

Lufthansa Cargo has joint venture agreements with All Nippon Airways and Cathay Pacific under which airlines work closely on ground handling, selling belly space on each others flights.

Overall Lufthansa group operates 17 freighter aircraft including 12 MD-11F and 5 Boeing 777F.