United Airlines and Lufthansa Cargo have signed a joint venture (JV) agreement for “extensive cargo cooperation” on routes between the US and Europe, claiming customers will benefit from a wider network, coordinated handling processes, and transit-time savings.
The cargo joint venture partners – whose parent airline groups are both members of the 28-member ‘Star Alliance’ of passenger airlines – said the companies would provide a wide range of new benefits to customers by cooperating on the availability of their capacity and aligning booking and handling processes.
They said: “The carriers’ joint venture route network will provide greater flexibility and time savings to customers with thousands of new weekly route combinations and more than 600 direct connections per week between the US and Europe. The combined network offering creates additional benefits through access from either partner’s booking channels along with coordinated handling processes and transfers at numerous stations.”
Lufthansa Cargo CEO Peter Gerber commented: “The Lufthansa-United cargo joint venture will generate numerous benefits for our customers because our continental and transatlantic networks, our hubs and our fleet complement each other.”
Jan Krems, president of United Cargo, said: “We are excited about the benefits that will be generated by our teams’ cooperation and our combined capacities. Cargo customers will appreciate the opportunities for quicker and easier shipping between key locations in the US and Europe.”
The contract signing initiates the implementation phase of the joint venture project, during which the carriers will align their cargo IT systems and business processes with the goal to implement ‘Business Day 1’ later this year.
Lufthansa Cargo already has cargo partnerships with other international air cargo carriers including Japan’s ANA and Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific. As reported in Lloyd’s Loading List United Airlines and Lufthansa Cargo announced in late 2015 that the two carriers were planning to extend their longstanding cooperation in airline passenger services to include a cargo cooperation on routes between the US and Europe. They revealed then that they were “discussing a wide variety of possible elements of planned cooperation, to create a seamless network for the shipping industry, including, an alignment of information technology services and warehouse facilities”.
United Cargo carried over 2.8 billion cargo tonne miles in 2016 via the cargo capacity of the approximately 4,500 flights a day to 337 airports across five continents operated by United Airlines and United Express. It operates a mainline fleet of 743 aircraft, including over 170 wide-bodies, and has US mainland hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and provides international services to and from Asia and Australia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
Lufthansa Cargo transported around 1.6 million tonnes of freight and mail and sold 8.4 billion revenue tonne-kilometres in 2016. The company currently employs about 4,500 people worldwide and serves around 300 destinations in approximately 100 countries with its own fleet of freighters, the belly capacities of passenger aircraft operated by Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings, and an extensive road feeder service network.
