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13. April 2020

Lufthansa Cargo flies high

The Cargo Crane spreads its wings by deploying parent company Lufthansa’s passenger aircraft which have had their seat pallets removed in order to transport urgent consignments from China to Europe. The passenger to cargo conversions complement the carrier’s own freighter fleet’s main deck capacity. Concurrently, sister company Austrian Airlines has also turned passenger aircraft into temporary freighters to fly cargo from China and Malaysia to Vienna, Austria.

Unlike Lufthansa’s passenger division, whose activities have come to a virtual standstill, many Lufthansa Cargo employees have to work overtime these days. Due to the current bottleneck situation in air freight on trade lanes between the Far East and Europe, caused by the absence of passenger aircraft and thus the loss of lower deck capacity, airlines are tending to convert passenger jetliners into freighters. A task that is carried out by mechanics of Lufthansa Cargo and sister company Austrian Airlines, who are currently clearing the cabins and removing the seats on six passenger aircraft in order to accommodate freight there.

Six pax to cargo conversions
At Lufthansa, four aircraft will be converted over the Easter period, enabling Lufthansa Cargo to operate 35 weekly additional flights with the aircraft that, once the seats are removed, can each carry up to 30 tons of cargo in their cabins and belly holds. This allows Lufthansa Cargo to offer the market two daily flights between Frankfurt and Shanghai, and one daily roundtrip Frankfurt-Beijing. Freight capacity at Munich will also be upped through two converted A350-900s that will operate daily flights from MUC to Shanghai and Beijing.
In nearby Austria, local Lufthansa Group member Austrian Airlines will utilize a Boeing 767-300 and one of their B777-200s passenger jetliners to fly air freight from Easter onwards. The two aircraft will take off from Vienna to Shanghai (8 x week), Beijing (5 x week), Penang in Malaysia (2 x week) and Xiamen (1 x week).

Lufthansa A330-300 pax aircraft currently utilized as freighter -  image courtesy LH Cargo
Lufthansa A330-300 pax aircraft currently utilized as freighter - image courtesy LH Cargo

Push in capacity
Thanks to the quick change of passenger aircraft to freighters, a total of 51 additional weekly cargo flights from Germany and Austria to the Far East and back will be operated by Lufthansa Cargo (35) and sister Austrian Airlines (16). This adds to the capacity of 14 Lufthansa Cargo operated Boeing 777 freighter flights per week between Frankfurt and destinations on the Chinese mainland, offering the market 1,440 tons of main deck capacity.
Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG lauded the latest activities of his company’s freight subsidiary: “Especially now, cargo flights are of the utmost importance for medical facilities, but also for manufacturers and large corporations. We are doing everything we can to maintain supply chains during this crisis and ensure that people receive sufficient supplies. This is an important part of our corporate responsibility as a leading European aviation group."

AUA grants cargo window seats  -  photo: credit Austrian Airlines
AUA grants cargo window seats - photo: credit Austrian Airlines

Lufthansa restructures passenger business
Otherwise, the manager has had little to be happy about these past few days. The airline is losing one million euros an hour due to the near standstill in passenger traffic leading to the grounding of 700 of its fleet of 760 passenger aircraft. 
To reduce the drain of cash the Executive Board decided to introduce short time work for at least 31,000 staff employed in Germany until the end of August and tens of thousands more in other countries. Lufthansa’s global headcount totals 135,000. Further, all operational activities of its 2002 incepted, low-cost subsidiary, Germanwings will be terminated, and the passenger fleet of Lufthansa and the entire group, including Swiss, Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings, will be considerably scaled down since air travel will need years to reach pre-Covid-19 levels, forecasts Mr. Spohr.


Heiner Siegmund

 


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Comments: 2
  • #1

    Rayhan ahmed (Monday, 13 April 2020 23:41)

    As a British ramper at Heathrow I am struggling to come to terms with loading cargo on a pax aircraft converted to a freighter . Firstly cargo
    Hold front and rear plus hold 5 on
    A 777 and A330 is a easy operation to
    Load and offload freight with belt
    X 2 fmcs .
    Now trying to get freight in the passenger seats is another question ok fine in removing all the passenger seats
    Like ELAL has done on one of there
    777. Now how do you get the freight up onto a 777 or 330 passenger cabin you
    Can’t use a FMC because none of
    The 777 or 330 have a side cargo door
    So what do you do ???? Answer using Max of 4 belt loaders and guide them to
    The passenger doors and load the cargo ... physically which must be one
    Hell of a job plus men power with higher
    Downtime of the aircraft specially on
    A turn . If the cargo is boxes Or other
    Goods they needed be loaded via the belt and then tied down on the seats one after the other. The workload must
    Be immense and ramp crew morale must be extremely low tieing down
    Ie 4 boxes or more on each seat depending on the load sheet and moving then physically from the doors ways needs a lot extreme physically
    Effort .
    Now removing seats from a 777 which
    ELAL has done makes it even harder in
    Regards to lockdown did ELAL make way for this conversion by removing the seats by having a facility for tie down
    As looking at the photographs of the
    777 ELAL.
    This also depends how many passenger
    Seats need to removed now you can’t just starting removing all passenger seats on a 777 or 330 this would highly
    Stupid.
    This ramp operation of loading and offloading cargo from pax aircraft seats
    With or without will carry on well into
    Lockdown is lifted and might last a couple weeks which We would call
    A ( post lockdown ) running a couple
    Of weeks of operating passenger
    Aircraft as freighters.
    Ramp operation on a passenger which is being used as a freighter is not a easy
    Option ie the workload, manpower ,
    Downtime etc .
    Lufthansa has this easy option on there
    A320/A321 which passenger seats can be tied down with cargo which would be
    Easy compared to a A330. /B777 and
    And operating then as freighters without even removing the passenger
    Seats ... This would be the same with
    Germanwings , eurowings , TAP, Austrian , on there 320/321.
    Turkish airlines 777/330 passenger aircraft are going out as freighters from
    Heathrow but I am not aware that they
    Have removed the passenger seats or
    Are tieing cargo down on them because I have not been to work since my uk
    Govt leave of 80per cent salary from
    Menzies Aviation since the end of
    March 2020.
    Now I still can not imagine how they are
    Securing these cargo to the passenger
    Seats is it via rope or straps .. with the
    Straps you need a point for locking in
    Like I explained in my other comment in tieing down animals in hold 5 the
    Other week .
    The cargo strapped to the seats need
    To be stable no movement the cargo
    Must not be moving left right and centre and falling about while in flight .
    The complex of putting cargo on passenger seats is very hard to imagine
    Because I have no conducted this
    Kind of ramp operation before since
    Being on the ramp since 2002.






  • #2

    Rayhan ahmed (Monday, 13 April 2020 23:47)

    I imagine Lufthansa removing
    The seats on the A330/B777 to
    Make way for 30tons of cargo would
    Have secure tie equipment fitted likes
    What ELAL has done on there B777 will
    Most probably not have this looking at the last photographs of the removed
    Seats???????

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