Lufthansa warms to Airbus freighter as it plans cargo-fleet expansion

Lufthansa’s cargo division said it’s seeking more freighter planes to keep pace with booming global demand and that purchases could include Airbus’s new A350F model. Lufthansa Cargo is making the case at group level for adding more single-aisle and wide-body planes, including additional Boeing 777F freighters to ply long-haul routes, unit chief Dorothea von Boxberg said. “The group sees how strong we are and how profitable this market is at the moment,” she said, adding that Lufthansa will hold talks with Airbus on the A350F freighter “to see what operational benefits it would bring and how cost effective the whole package would be.” Air-cargo demand has reached record levels during the coronavirus pandemic, fueled by disruption to international shipping routes as supply lines fracture and containers stack up in the wrong place, together with a shift to more time-sensitive online shopping that’s expected to persist beyond the crisis. Lufthansa Cargo has become the airline’s best-performing division, contributing almost E1b in earnings in the first nine months of 2021 and helping to staunch a cash drain that threatened to tip Europe’s biggest airline group into bankruptcy.<br/>