Lufthansa Cargo - History

History

Lufthansa had already operated a cargo subsidiary, called German Cargo, between 1977 and 1993 (earlier still, cargo operations were executed in-house, already under the Lufthansa Cargo name), when in an effort to restructure the company the cargo division was re-integrated into the mother concern, and split up into two parts (one for scheduled operations using Lufthansa-owned aircraft, and one for freight and logistics services using chartered or leased aircraft).

Thus, Lufthansa Cargo was created as a limited stock company on 30 November 2004, along with Lufthansa Cargo Charter. Concerning its airline codes, Lufthansa Cargo uses LH (the same IATA code as Lufthansa), as well as GEC (the former ICAO code of German Cargo). Lufthansa is unique compared to its major European competitors like British Airways and Air France in that the cargo business is organized in an entirely different airline entity. For some years, Lufthansa Cargo (including the freight transported in the cargo holds of mainline Lufthansa passenger aircraft) was the leading cargo airline in terms of international freight tonne-kilometres carried, but has meanwhile been surpassed by Cathay Pacific and Korean Air Cargo.