European passenger-freighter traffic wanes as passenger travel lifts off

Passenger-freighter flight operations are waning on trans-Atlantic routes as tourism begins to pick up for the summer, increasing passenger flight volumes and on some routes. As bellyhold capacity becomes more widely available on passenger flights across the Atlantic, the economics of adding cargo-only capacity make less sense on this trade lane than in recent months. [caption id="attachment_91055" align="alignright" width="450"] Cargo on the main deck of a reconfigured Cathay Pacific 777 aircraft. Photo courtesy of Pittsburgh Airport.[/caption] American Airlines, which operated a total of 260 widebody flights in July 2020, told Air Cargo World it anticipates it will operate more than 1,600 this July. “We are still operating trans-Atlantic cargo-only flights to Europe, though the vast majority of our routes to Europe are scheduled passenger services,” said Maulin Vakil, managing director of customer care and performance at American Airlines Cargo. American expects just 26 of those flights will be without passengers. “As passenger demand continues to recover, we are optimistic for a strong summer ahead. However, we will continue to operate cargo-only flights or charter flights based on customer needs,” said Vakil. Widebody passenger freighters that were being used in Europe and other markets are being recalled to the U.S. to fly passengers, said Stephane Soulagnat, airfreight procurement manager at France-based Bollore Logistics. Although passenger freighters were useful early in the pandemic for transporting personal protective equipment (PPE), which ships in small containers, other types of cargo cannot fit through a passenger cabin door. “I see fewer and fewer preighters in the air,” said Stanislas Brun, vice president of global airfreight at French forwarder GEODIS. Of those still flying, many have simply chosen to sell the 11 to 12 pallets worth of space available in their bellyholds. The only trans-Atlantic passenger freighters likely to make sense, according to Soulagnat, are those bound for destinations like Amsterdam (AMS) and Frankfurt (FRA), where carriers must operate a certain percentage of the slots they’re allotted each year on schedule — or risk losing them. Continuing to move cargo along these lines will hopefully help to make some of the losses bearable, he said. Available passenger flight seats between Germany and the U.S. were down 71% in May 2021, compared to May 2019, but are starting to return. From April to May 2021, seat availability increased by 22.6% between the United States and Germany, indicating some recovery. Likewise, seats on flights between the Netherlands and the U.S. increased by almost 20% between April and May 2021, after falling more than 50% between May 2019 and May 2021, according to digital flight analyst OAG. Increased tourism will lead to increased bellyhold capacity within Western Europe and even on some trans-Atlantic routes, said Soulagnat, but “even cargo moving at a higher rate are still moving at a loss for airlines,” he added. Meanwhile, Europe-bound lanes from the U.S. have plenty of capacity, while capacity moving in the opposite direction remains constrained, noted GEODIS’ Brun. “You have already seen some rates which are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. If you look at North America to Europe, we are not so far anymore,” he said. Overall, seats on passenger carriers within Western Europe decreased 73.5% between May 2019 and May 2021, but increased 23.5% between April 2021 and May 2021, according to OAG data. Still, the use of passenger freighters continues to make sense in some regions. For example, South America and Europe remain connected exclusively by freighters, according to Brun, albeit very few of them. Just this week, LATAM announced that it had recently reconfigured three 767-300ERs with Canada-based Avianor, the aircraft modification specialist that has reconfigured passenger aircraft for Air Canada and Kenya Airways, among other airlines. Carriers in Asia and the Middle East, meanwhile, continue to operate significant cargo-only networks with large numbers of reconfigured passenger aircraft. What remains unchanged is the dominance of freighter aircraft. Between 60% and 70% of the world’s airfreight continues to move by freighter, compared to less than 45% pre-pandemic, Brun said.

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