Global Hardware 28 March 2020

[DonFerrari]

trunkswd said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Except, it is.

Much stuff that got transported by planes in the past was done so in the trunks on passenger planes, since luggage only fills those about halfway up.

But since those ain't flying anymore, cargo airlines now have to haul all that stuff plus their usual stuff and tons of medical supplies to boot. And that with reduced manpower due to Covid-19, so loading and unloading takes longer than usual. All this puts enormous pressure on cargo airlines who simply can't transport their dues plus all the extra in time, and thus their fares, which were already above those for freight in passenger planes, have gone up substantially.

We had an interview here in Luxembourg with the airport management and bosses of Cargolux and Luxair. Luxair was down 60% until mid-March, but Cargolux was already 20% up and got more and more orders as passenger airplanes got grounded, and were worrying that they couldn't carry all that stuff. Keep in mind that Cargolux is one of the biggest air cargo companies in the world (9th worldwide and biggest non-subsidiary cargo airline), but for cargo companies to reach that, they need much less panes than passenger airlines. So their 28 Boeing 747 cargo  are in constant demand, as they basically have to replace around a thousand passenger planes. 

thank you for the explanation. I was just thinking since airlines were barely flying at all and the flights they are doing are mostly empty there would be plenty of room for cargo on them. 

They aren't flying, let's say it would cost to much to fly the aircraft without passengers and rely only on carrying stuff on the dock.

For regular aircrafts it is a synergy where you as passenger will cost less because a lot of the cargo space is sold to other companies transportation needs, and these companies also save money on their transporting costs compared to a cargo ship (and have more varied lines) because passengers pay for a lot of the cost while not using the whole cargo space (main reason why we have to pay extra for more luggage, it isn't just a matter of costing more fuel to transport your stuff, but also using space that would be used for other stuff).