Aeroflot Group continues to see declines in cargo and mail with January down 13.3 per cent compared to the same month last year, after a 2014 fiscal year that also saw an overall fall of 18.7 per cent.
The Russian airline group continues to see larger declines in its international mail and cargo and smaller, with year-on-year single digit drops in its domestic post and freight. The airline is yet to report its full year financal results, but in November it reported a nine-month loss of 3.6 billion roubles compares to a 17.2 billion roubles profit in the same period of 2013. Revenue from cargo flights was down by 17.9 per cent to 5.9 billion roubles, which it says is because of discontinuing its cargo fleet in 2013 and switching to bellyhold operations. The airline made the loss despite revenue increasing by 6.5 per cent to 236.7 billion roubles from January to September. In its January 2015 traffic results there had been a 13.4 per cent decline in overall cargo and mail.
This followed December 2014, when the Aeroflot airline saw falls of 2.4 per cent for cargo and mail overall. November had seen a similar 2.3 per cent decrease. October was down more at 6.2 per cent, despite achieving the highest tonnage figure of the year at 16,615 tonnes, up from 13,091 tonnes in September.
Looking back at 2014, January saw 9,692 tonnes, rising to 9,860 tonnes in February before increasing to 11,860 tonnes and 13,903 tonnes in March and April, respectively. It handled 10,839 tonnes in May, before dropping to 10,354 tonnes in June and rising to 10,942 tonnes in July and increasing slightly in August to 11,061 tonnes.
November just missed October’s high with 16,248 tonnes and December fell further to 14,446 tonnes. January 2015 was down to 8,390 tonnes. January in 2014 had seen 9,693 tonnes.
The revenue cargo tonne kilometres (RCTK) faired no better between January 2014 and 2015 with a fall of 14.4 per cent. International RCTK contributed the most to that fall with a 20.4 per cent decline. Domestic RCTK fell 4.3 per cent. In 2014, Aeroflot added 13 Airbus A320s, three Boeing 737-800s and six 777-300ERs to its fleet, while five 767-300ERs and two 320s were retired.
