Lufthansa Cargo carried 1.6 million tonnes of freight in 2015, which was a slight year-on-year decline in volumes on 2014, but it says customer satisfaction levels remain high.

The carrier says the total volume declined slightly in a “challenging market environment” and the company had carried around two per cent more freight the previous year.

Lufthansa Cargo increased the capacity offered by two per cent over the last 12 months. However, with sales falling slightly, capacity utilisation was also down. The full-year load factor was 66.3 per cent (-3.4 percentage points).

Lufthansa Cargo chief executive officer and chairman of the executive board, Peter Gerber says: “Last year was not an easy one for the airfreight industry. Turbulence in the Chinese market and the strong US dollar, that affected a lot of industries, stretched us all to our limits.

“Strikes called by the Vereinigung Cockpit pilots’ union and the cabin crew union UFO also weighed heavily on us at Lufthansa Cargo.”

Lufthansa Cargo continued to invest in its own product and network last year, adding new destinations in places such as Turkmenistan, Vietnam and Brazil to its flight schedule. it says the high customer satisfaction level of the previous year was maintained.

Gerber says Lufthansa Cargo will remain flexible and operate close to the market in 2016 as well.

The Lufthansa subsidiary is withdrawing two MD-11 Freighters from its fleet to further increase capacity utilisation on the freighter routes. The airline is therefore offering its customers flights of its five new Boeing 777 Freighters as well as twelve MD-11Fs.

On top of this, there are capacities via its AeroLogic subsidiary, which has a total of eight Boeing 777Fs. Lufthansa Cargo customers can make use of the belly capacities of passenger aircraft operated by Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines, giving them access to a network of more than 300 destinations in around 100 countries.