Lufthansa, Europe’s second largest airline, reported a rise in cargo earnings of more than 20 per cent in 2008 from a year earlier, but warned of declining revenue and profit in 2009 as freight volumes continue to collapse amid the ongoing global recession. Lufthansa Cargo’s operating profit rose 20.6 per cent to €164 million year-on-year as revenue gained 6.3 per cent to € 2.9 billion. The cargo division’s results come in the face of a severe industry downturn which saw a six per cent decline in cargo traffic to 1.7 million tonnes from 1.8 million tonnes in 2007, and represents the second best result since Lufthansa Cargo was established as an independent unit in 1994. Revenue on the Americas network rose 12.8 per cent to €776 million despite a 3.6 per cent drop in traffic to 483,000 tonnes. Asia/Pacific revenue was up 4.5 per cent to €1.16 billion on a 2.3 per cent decline in volume to 466,000 tonnes. European revenue dropped 7.6 per cent to €298.6 million and traffic slumped 12.4 per cent to 634,000 tonnes. Lufthansa has grounded four of its 19 MD-11 freighters and cut hours for 2,600 cargo handlers by 20 per cent starting this month after traffic dropped by close to 25 percent year on year in January and February. As a result of the plummeting traffic – down nearly 25 per cent in January and February, year-on-year, Lufthansa Cargo said that it will ground two MD-11 freighters based at Leipzig/Halle and park two more aircraft at Frankfurt. The Frankfurt pair will not fly but will be maintained enabling them to immediately resume operations once demand picks up. This reduction represents nearly 20 per cent of the cargo division’s total capacity of its 19 MD-11F fleet.