Leisure cargo has changed ownership recently as its parent company LTU was taken over by Air-Berlin. This forms quite a strong group of long, medium and short haul airlines i.e. Air-Berlin, LTU, Niki, Belair and former dba with a widely spread network.

The carrier without a fleet has performed successfully again in 2006, its seventh year in operation. Tonnes handled were up over 2005 17.3 percent to 47.129 t and revenues generated for the 18 mandate carriers were 58.2 million euros, an increase of 19.6 percent compared with the previous year. The margin is described as good, even better than the industry average. However, at the same time it became more difficult lately to score top results in this costly and competitive environment.

Zainal Abidin Bin Abdul Kapur, managing director of the Asian organisation based in Kuala Lumpur was successful in offering total cargo management to Air Asia. Both carriers were formerly handled by Lufthansa Cargo subsidiary cargo counts. Nine weekly frequencies to Bangkok and Phuket offer ideal connections with the entire Air Asia network. The number of Europe flights is going to be increased to double daily and new aircraft with more cargo capacity should be coming soon.

One of the mandate carriers of leisure cargo has included Delhi in its network allowing the cargo alliance access to the market on the sub continent. Eric Fraenkel in charge for Latin America also scored in his region. Santa Barbara Airlines, Caracas is flying CCS-MAD and Sao Paulo based BRA Transportes Aereos connects Lisbon and Madid with Sao Paulo, Rio, Recife, Fortaleza, Natal and Porto Seguro and a number of domestic stations.

LTU flies 11 weekly frequencies to Florida offering ideal connections with Central America and the Caribbean. In addition leisure cargo has again created feeder services with chartered capacities to connect Transatlantic flights in the Dominican Republic, on Curacao and soon Barbados as well.

Most long haul connections are increased. Most will be operated throughout the year. Munich and Düsseldorf are upgraded and Intra Europe gradually shifts from tour operator controlled connections to business oriented city pair or regions of growing industries and trade.

The cargo management contract of TuiFly has been extended and expanded bringing in all former Hapag routes and the respective fleet. – Guenter Mossler