Lufthansa offers cargo management for passenger airlines

Lufthansa offers cargo management for passenger airlines       A new Lufthansa Cargo subsidiary, cargo counts GmbH, opened for business Friday, selling total cargo management service to small and mid-sized passenger airlines.
   Lufthansa provides third-party cargo management service for its leisure carrier Thomas Cook, Spanish airline Spanair and Turkish airline SunExpress, in which Lufthansa owns a majority share. The new company, an outgrowth of those successful operations, packages air freight management services, such as sales, marketing, ground handling, delivery, accounting, tracking, yield and capacity management, for the rest of the market.
   The new company will buy cargo capacity and market it, leaving the airline with the responsibility to fly the aircraft.
   By outsourcing their cargo activities, airlines are expected to benefit from Lufthansa’s sophisticated cargo network, expertise, and economies of scale. Lufthansa officials have previously stated that their separate subsidiary won’t be obligated to funnel business to Lufthansa Cargo, but will contract with the company that best meets a particular airlines needs. cargo counts also assumes the risk of cancelled shipments and under utilized cargo space.
   cargo counts, which began as an in-house project known as Yellow Cargo, originally was planned for a June launch.