Qatar Airways cargo up almost 40% in 2015

It’s easy to post huge year-over-year growth percentages when you have hardly any cargo business, or if you’ve just entered the market. But to achieve 37.5% growth when you are already one of the world’s major cargo carriers is remarkable – but that is just what Qatar Airways Cargo did in 2015.

According to IATA, Qatar Airways was the sixth-largest non-express cargo carrier in the world in 2014, reporting total cargo traffic (in freight tonne kilometers flown) of 6.04 billion FTKs. We won’t know Qatar’s cargo traffic total for 2015 for some time, but this week the carrier published cargo volume statistics showing that it had carried 1,520,000 tonnes in 2015, up 37.5% from the 1,104,000 tonnes carried the year before. And Qatar said it expects further tonnage growth in 2016 “as more aircraft join the expanding fleet and more destinations are added to the route network.”

Qatar Airways currently operates eight 777Fs and eight A330-200Fs and ACMI-leases one 747-400F from myCargo Airlines, and has eight more 777Fs on order. The carrier said it currently carries about 51% of its cargo shipments on freighters and 49% in the bellies of its growing passenger fleet.

And because it’s Friday, and you need some videos to watch on the weekend…