New air freight connections between continental Europe and British Isles
Due to the positive response from the market and the continuing high demand from the e-commerce and same-day segments, Lufthansa Cargo is planning to intensify air freight connectivity between continental Europe and the British Isles. The German airline will add two new routes from Frankfurt, its hub airport, to the key cities in Britain. They will be performed by an Airbus A321F freighter.
In October 2022, Lufthansa Cargo will enter service the second A321 freighter, the twin-engine, technically advanced narrow-body aircraft, with registration D-AEUA. The aircraft will be based at the Frankfurt hub and operated by Lufthansa CityLine under the wet lease agreement. It will fly on the new routes, mainly between Germany and the United Kingdom. The new destinations in the intra-European network include Birmingham (BHX), London (LHR) and Madrid (MAD). Currently, the airline runs freight-dedicated flights from Frankfurt to Dublin (DUB) and Manchester (MAN).
“I am very pleased about the expansion of our A321 freighter network and capacity. Complementing our B777F and belly capacity, we can now offer even shorter transport times within European and to selected medium-haul destinations. To the UK and Ireland, for example, we will offer daily weekday flights to Birmingham and Dublin, enabling our customers to build reliable, scalable and fast supply chains. It is our goal to build a European same-day and e-commerce network and thereby establish Lufthansa Cargo as the leading European cargo airline and service partner in the market,” said Ashwin Bhat, CCO of Lufthansa Cargo.
Similar to the first A321F, the second aircraft will be powerful and fuel-efficient at the same time. It is identical in design to the first A321 freighter (D-AEUC, ‘Hello Europe’): A total of 28 tonnes of payload is available on 14 pallets and container positions on the main deck and ten on the lower deck. Lufthansa Cargo can continue enlarging its footprint by offering the known quality service and products in the fast-growing e-commerce segment. Two additional A321 freighters are expected in the first half of 2023. This means that Lufthansa Cargo will double its A321F capacities in the future and will strive to deploy these aircraft to suit the respective customer needs.