Lufthansa, Deutsche Post to set up 50-50 JV on Asian cargo airline
Frankfurt (Thomson Financial) - Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Deutsche
Post World Net AG said they are setting up a 50-50 joint venture on a cargo
airline that will focus on transporting air freight and express shipments into
and out of Asia.
CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber of Lufthansa and his Deutsche Post counterpart Klaus Zumwinkel said at a joint news conference that the flight operations of the airline, which will be based in Leipzig, are scheduled to begin in April 2009.
The two companies said that the 11 Boeing 777-200LRF aircraft they will lease for their joint cargo airline have a list price of 2.5 bln usd.
Deutsche Post's Zumwinkel declined to detail leasing costs as negotiations on the lease are ongoing.
The new airline, whose equity capital will amount to 50 mln eur, will be managed by Thomas Papke, formerly at Lufthansa Cargo, and Thomas Pusch, formerly at DHL.
The name of the airline will be decided at a later date.
Its route network will include Singapore, Bangkok, Bombay, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Nagoya, Almaty, Astana and Seoul in Asia, Dubai and Sharjah in the Middle East, Leipzig, East Midlands and Milan in Europe as well as Chicago and New York in the US.
The two companies first announced plans to set up a 50-50 joint venture on a cargo airline last month.