Lufthansa Cargo and All Nippon Airways (ANA) have operated their first flights as part of the airlines “joint sales of shipments” on 2 December.
The first shipment was booked via Lufthansa Cargo’s website and transported on ANA flight route NH277 from Haneda International Airport (HND) to Heathrow Airport (LHR) on 2 December using a Boeing 777-300. Forwarder, Schenker-Seino sent the three pieces of cargo weighing 153 kilogrammes. Lufthansa says the direct flight means customers can receive shipments around 16 hours earlier than choosing a connection via Frankfurt (Germany). The first shipment booked through ANA’s website for Lufthansa Cargo flight route LH8385 transported 1.8 tonnes of cargo from Narita International Airport to Frankfurt Airport using a Boeing MD-11F.
Lufthansa Cargo chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Peter Gerber says: “This cooperation marks a great step for our customers. We are looking forward to intensifying our cooperation with ANA, which sets a further milestone in bringing the economies of Japan and Europe closer together.”
ANA Cargo CEO, Akiro Okada says: “This partnership will improve the level of service offered to customers by generating a greater selection of routings and a wider range of service options.”
The joint venture means increased services from the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Nagoya and Kansai to the German cities of Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf. It will also mean services to London, Paris and Vienna. It will provide two daily flights from Haneda to Frankfurt using ANA and one daily by Lufthansa. There will be one daily service from Narita to Frankfurt supplemented by three flight routes spread over six days of the week operated by Lufthansa. There will also be a daily flight from Kansai International Airport to Frankfurt and a five times a week Nagoya to Frankfurt service operated by Lufthansa.
Daily services from Haneda to Munich will be available from ANA and six times a week from Lufthansa. ANA will operate a daily services between, Narita and Dusseldorf, Haneda to Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport from both Narita and Haneda.
Lufthansa subsidiary, Austrian Airlines will operate a six times a week service from Narita to Vienna International Airport.
