Beginning this fall, Lufthansa will introduce new, lightweight transport containers. The company announced its container fleet at Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo will be partially replaced by new containers made of a light plastic material.
The smaller containers, which are transported on the underfloor deck of passenger and cargo planes, will be replaced by 2015. The new containers are up to 15-percent lighter. This means kerosene consumption can be lowered by about 2,180 tonnes per year, Lufthansa said, noting the company will save 6,867 tonnes of CO2. A total of 5,000 containers are being replaced.
Lufthansa Cargo and Jettainer, a Lufthansa Cargo subsidiary handling the logistics management of the transport containers, have carried out on-board testing of the new containers. The containers will be used both for transporting passengers’ luggage and cargo shipments. All the security and handling properties were included in the tests. The containers need fewer repairs than conventional transport containers made of aluminium and satisfy all the necessary standards, Lufthansa said.
“The new light containers are another step towards achieving our ambitious targets to reduce emissions, said Karl Ulrich Garnadt, Lufthansa Cargo’s CEO and chairman of the board. “Together with Jettainer we are targeting investment in the latest technology and in the Lufthansa group will therefore operate the largest fleet of lightweight containers in the world.”
To achieve this, the development of new generations of lightweight containers as well as the expansion of this technology to other types of containers will be pushed forward, the company said.
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