Lufthansa, DHL air cargo venture set for 2009 take off

Lufthansa, DHL air cargo venture set for 2009 take off German transport giants Deutsche Post World Net and Deutsche Lufthansa have provided more details of the air cargo joint venture to be managed by their subsidiaries after getting the green light from competition authorities.
   The yet unnamed new limited company will be based in Leipzig and will be equally owned by Lufthansa Cargo and DHL Express. Flight operations are scheduled to begin in April 2009 using 11 leased Boeing 777-200LRF planes focused on transporting cargo and express shipments into and out of Asia.
   'With the new joint company, we will further improve express service between Europe and the Asia growth markets,' said Charles Graham, DHL Express' chief executive officer aviation. 'Our customers will profit from more capacities, better transit times and higher quality all-round.'
   Carsten Spohr, chairman of Lufthansa Cargo, said: 'Joint utilization of aircraft capacities will enable us to harness growth opportunities cost efficiently. DHL will be commercially responsible for operating the express network with additional cargo from Lufthansa Cargo on weekdays. Flight schedules at weekends will suit the customer requirements of Lufthansa Cargo with onload freight on those flights from DHL.'
   Pending the granting of traffic rights, the new airline will gradually expand its route network from the summer schedule 2009. On weekdays, it will serve Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai, Bombay, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Nagoya, Almaty, East Midlands (United Kingdom) and Milan. On weekends, it will fly to Shanghai, Astana, Singapore, Bangkok, Sharjah, Hong Kong, Chicago and New York.
   Management of the new airline will be handled jointly by Thomas Papke, formerly with Lufthansa Cargo, and Thomas Pusch, previously at DHL.