Lufthansa Cargo’s participation in Cargo Portal Services (CPS) will give the company’s air cargo clients a free, web-based facility to manage bookings through a neutral portal.

Helge Kruger-Lorenzen, vice president for global sales steering of Lufthansa Cargo, said: “We are now able to offer our clients the choice to manage their shipments online via the CPS platform. We know that our freight forwarder clients want a choice of channels on which to make electronic bookings, and that there is a strong demand for Lufthansa Cargo to be online via the shipment booking portal CPS. We look forward to servicing their needs through this channel.”

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The airline recorded cargo tonne kilometres of 2,437.4m, an increase of 2.0% from the first half of the previous financial year. Cargo capacity dropped by 3.2%.

Commercial revenues for the first half of the financial year increased by 25.2% from the same period last year to GBP363m.

HACTL handled 222,166 tonnes of air cargo in October. Cumulative tonnage from January to October was 2.2 million tonnes, up less than one percent compared with the first ten months of 2007.

Exports declined 10.7 percent in October to 127,332 tonnes. Imports fell 13.6 percent to 51,336 tonnes. Transshipments slipped 2 percent to 43,498 tonnes.

For the year so far, exports are down 1 percent; imports are down 2 percent; and transshipments are up 11.2 percent.

In a statement filed with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the port operator said container throughput in October decreased 19.4 pct from a year earlier to 444,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).

In the 10 months to October, cargo handled by the company rose 9.5 pct year-on-year to 54.11 mln tons, while container throughput increased 2.6 pct to 5.157 mln TEU.

Eleven containers of treated waste were on Monday transferred from a train onto lorries in Dannenberg for the final journey to the northern Gorleben site.

The train was delayed for hours after setting off from La Hague in France on Friday, as protesters clashed with police trying to block the shipment.

Several demonstrators even managed to cement themselves to the tracks.

A number of protesters are continuing to block access to the Gorleben site in Lower Saxony.

“We will be the last to be removed, but we will keep going. I don’t care if it’s tomorrow or the day after tomorrow - I’m staying here,” Katrin Heineberger from Germany’s Green Youth Party said.

“I want to bloc the transporter and stop it from making its way to the storage facility,” she said.

Some 16,000 police have been deployed across Germany to ensure the shipment reaches its final destination.

Germany has no reprocessing facilities of its own, and each year it sends large quantities of used fuel to France and Britain for treatment.

The treated waste is then returned to Gorleben, which has been the focus of anti-nuclear protests for more than 30 years.

The government in Berlin has approved plans to phase out its nuclear energy by about 2020.

The company said in a statement, “Demand on Southeast Asia routes was strong, while demand on China routes, on which supply had been increased, rose from the year-earlier-period. On the other hand, on U.S. routes and Europe routes where we had reduced supply, demand decreased from the year-earlier-period. As a result, revenue cargo ton-kilometers decreased by 7.5 percent from the year-earlier period.”

“As a result of the accelerated retirement of classic-type Boeing 747 freighters to improve profitability, supply measured in available cargo ton kilometers decreased by 4.2 percent from the year-earlier period,” it said.

An increase in high-quality handling service and fuel surcharges helped boost income by 12.8 percent. Revenue increased by 4.3 percent to 95.4 billion yen. The company does not disclose cargo income figures.

The company lowered its full-year operating revenue forecast for cargo, made in May, by 5.5 billion ($934 million) to 187.5 billion yen ($1.9 billion).

Air Canada executives tried to reassure investors that it isn’t burning through cash faster amid weak industry conditions, but conceded that is financing options are limited.

Air Canada shares fell 53 cents to $4.83 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The airline said it had $1.114 billion on its balance sheet at the end of September, down $383 million in three months. In the quarter, its finances were hit by record high oil prices in July, which added $348 million in costs, then out-of-the-money fuel hedges when oil tumbled through September.

“Liquidity concerns could grow as Air Canada enters the seasonally weak winter season, when it has historically been unprofitable and using cash, a trend likely to be exacerbated by a weaker economy,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Claude Proulx wrote.

Air Canada will also likely be forced to boost funding for its pension deficit as equity markets struggle, he said.

But chief executive officer Montie Brewer said he believes Air Canada’s plans to cut capacity and jobs, announced last spring, and the strength of the Canadian economy compared with the U.S., should keep the carrier aloft.

He was happy with revenue in the third quarter and expects some increase in domestic revenue in the current quarter.

“What we’ve learned during these slowdowns is you’ve got to manage your capacity well, because it’s hard to get additional revenue by encouraging customers to spend money they don’t have,” Mr. Brewer said in a conference call.

The North American airline industry had been in a downturn for almost a year before the current broad financial meltdown took hold.

In June, the airline said it would cut seven per cent of its capacity in its autumn and winter schedules and chop as many as 2,000 jobs to cope with surging fuel costs and falling travel demand. The cuts should be completed by March.

Also playing in Air Canada’s favour, oil prices, at just over $61 a barrel, are at less than half the record levels of July, and it has renewed its fleet with fuel-efficient aircraft such as the Boeing 777 and Embraer 190.

In the third quarter, Air Canada lost a net $132 million, or $1.32 a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $273 million, or $2.73 a share. Excluding one-time items, the airline had a loss of 45 cents a share.

Operating revenue was $3.08 billion, up four per cent from $2.95 billion.

System revenue passenger miles for Delta for October 2008 showed a decrease of 2.2% from the same month last year, while system available seat miles dropped by 4.7%, resulting in a system load factor of 81.6%, an increase of 2.0 percentage points.

Northwest recorded a decrease in system revenue passenger miles for October 2008 of 1.4% compared to October 2007 and a drop in system available seat miles of 2.0%, resulting in an increase of 0.5 percentage points in system load factor at 84.3%.

Delta completed its merger with Northwest on 29 October 2008.

Transporters said poor availability of lorries triggered by busy cargo movements, pushed up some of the centres’ freight rates.

Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram freight went up by Rs 2,000 at Rs 46,000 and Goa freight hardened by Rs 1500 at Rs 26,000 respectively.

Rates to Mysore gained by Rs 2000 at Rs 34,000, while Kolkata freight rates moved up by Rs 1000 at Rs 24,000 respectively.