I know cargo demand shifts up and demand by the season, but are there some routes that are consistently filling the hold. Talking to a few people at DL, ATL-LIM seems to take a belly full year round.
So I am interested to know what routes are often utilizing the massive holds of some wide bodies to the maximum or close to it.

I sense fish are going to be mentioned very soon

I was going to mention fish from Iceland and crustaceans from Scotland, but it appears that's a cliche.

I believe roses out of Nairobi does nicely for KLM.

If you do it on a per flight basis, i'm going to throw a strange one out there, LAS-TLV, from what I am hearing every spare inch is being filled with high value pharmaceuticals, bizarre I know.

This is both unknown and unknowable. It's not info disclosed by carriers.

I sat at KEF watching fish being loaded. Its a very efficient system they have. Question is, is the airline there to move people or is it for the fishing industry?

goosebayguy wrote:

I sat at KEF watching fish being loaded. Its a very efficient system they have. Question is, is the airline there to move people or is it for the fishing industry?

Regarding a.net and the fish obsession with KEF and FI. KEF is much smaller compared to OSL when it comes to seafood cargo....

jetwet1 wrote:

If you do it on a per flight basis, i'm going to throw a strange one out there, LAS-TLV, from what I am hearing every spare inch is being filled with high value pharmaceuticals, bizarre I know.

That makes sense, yes, though I wonder if you meant vice versa? Israel is where a lot of pharmaceuticals are made, isn't it?

PHL-DOH. Cargo is the only thing that keeps it going.

MIflyer12 wrote:

This is both unknown and unknowable. It's not info disclosed by carriers.

This. Unknown, unknowable and irrelevant considering cargo makes up less than 2% of pax airline revenues.

Talking about fish, all Finnair flights HEL to Asia. Flying fresh Norwegian salmon.

Routes to HKG have significant cargo demand which often flows into China. It is a worldwide hub with everything from French wine to electronics moving daily.

Cargo outbound from Santiago, Lima, Bogota and São Paulo can be lucrative. Fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Amsterdam is a big flower and cargo hub for inbound cargo.

Horses to/from Calgary are highly valued, but those require dedicated freighters.

Seattle has some very high value airplane parts being sent from the giant Boeing warehouse next to the airport.

Western727 wrote:

jetwet1 wrote:

If you do it on a per flight basis, i'm going to throw a strange one out there, LAS-TLV, from what I am hearing every spare inch is being filled with high value pharmaceuticals, bizarre I know.

That makes sense, yes, though I wonder if you meant vice versa? Israel is where a lot of pharmaceuticals are made, isn't it?

No, it's LAS-TLV, a couple of the big US distributors have warehouses here (the security is insane btw) where a lot of the high value pharmaceuticals are stored and shipped from, for whatever reason TLV takes a huge amount, according to the sister in law who happens to be a VP at one of those huge companies and has the warehouse under her leadership.

RDUDDJI wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

This is both unknown and unknowable. It's not info disclosed by carriers.

This. Unknown, unknowable and irrelevant considering cargo makes up less than 2% of pax airline revenues.

The cargo revenue percentage is vastly different between different airlines. So you should name the airline where cargo is less than 2 % of the revenue.

With Finnair belly cargo is about 7.3 % of the revenue compared with 79.2 % from passengers in 2018.

With Icelandair cargo, belly and dedicated freighter, is about 3.9 % and passenger 68.5 % of the revenue in 2018.

In both cases numbers from the annual report 2018.

I have also heard the African routes can be cargo heavy. ATL-JNB, and also I’ve SN do well to the west coast of Africa.

TG's BKK-Europe probably carries tons of food products in the belly. Almost all Asian products here in Europe are from Thailand, from rice to spice.

AC carries a ton of cargo out of Lima to YYZ and YUL, lots of fresh asparagus.

Possibly CVG/IND-CDG

RDUDDJI wrote:

This. Unknown, unknowable and irrelevant considering cargo makes up less than 2% of pax airline revenues.

That was my first thought. I've lost count of how many times posters on here have listed route after route claiming that they're more than paid for with cargo and any passengers are just gravy. The income statements for airlines -- any of them -- say otherwise since cargo revenue is negligible.

If you want to find airports or routes with high cargo demand look at where DHL, UPS, and FedEx fly.

IPFreely wrote:

RDUDDJI wrote:

This. Unknown, unknowable and irrelevant considering cargo makes up less than 2% of pax airline revenues.

That was my first thought. I've lost count of how many times posters on here have listed route after route claiming that they're more than paid for with cargo and any passengers are just gravy. The income statements for airlines -- any of them -- say otherwise since cargo revenue is negligible.

If you want to find airports or routes with high cargo demand look at where DHL, UPS, and FedEx fly.

I recommend you look at the United and Delta quarter earning threads. Yea of course passengers are the most profitable, but there is no doubt belly cargo is hugely important on a lot of routes, so selling it short isn’t exactly right.

trent768 wrote:

TG's BKK-Europe probably carries tons of food products in the belly. Almost all Asian products here in Europe are from Thailand, from rice to spice.

But wouldn't dried products like that travel on container ships? I'd have thought only fresh food needs to be air-freighted. I hope so.

Mind you, I once heard a story that whole prawns are flown from the North Sea to Thailand, where they are peeled, before being flown back to the West to be sold. Any truth to that?

DylanHarvey wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

RDUDDJI wrote:

This. Unknown, unknowable and irrelevant considering cargo makes up less than 2% of pax airline revenues.

That was my first thought. I've lost count of how many times posters on here have listed route after route claiming that they're more than paid for with cargo and any passengers are just gravy. The income statements for airlines -- any of them -- say otherwise since cargo revenue is negligible.

If you want to find airports or routes with high cargo demand look at where DHL, UPS, and FedEx fly.

I recommend you look at the United and Delta quarter earning threads. Yea of course passengers are the most profitable, but there is no doubt belly cargo is hugely important on a lot of routes, so selling it short isn’t exactly right.

Good recommendation, it confirms exactly what I posted. Thanks.

IPFreely wrote:

DylanHarvey wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

That was my first thought. I've lost count of how many times posters on here have listed route after route claiming that they're more than paid for with cargo and any passengers are just gravy. The income statements for airlines -- any of them -- say otherwise since cargo revenue is negligible.

If you want to find airports or routes with high cargo demand look at where DHL, UPS, and FedEx fly.

I recommend you look at the United and Delta quarter earning threads. Yea of course passengers are the most profitable, but there is no doubt belly cargo is hugely important on a lot of routes, so selling it short isn’t exactly right.

Good recommendation, it confirms exactly what I posted. Thanks.

For the record some posters already proved that while not all cargo is worth over 2%. There are certainly a few. And if you’re referring to my OP, well, I never have and never will claim cargo is more important than passengers, because that’s ignorant.

Btw, on the LAS-TLV route, they also ship blood plasm, the logistics behind that must be immense.

Lots of oilfield spare parts fly IAH-DXB. The bigger stuff goes by chartered freighter.

IPFreely wrote:

DylanHarvey wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

That was my first thought. I've lost count of how many times posters on here have listed route after route claiming that they're more than paid for with cargo and any passengers are just gravy. The income statements for airlines -- any of them -- say otherwise since cargo revenue is negligible.

If you want to find airports or routes with high cargo demand look at where DHL, UPS, and FedEx fly.

I recommend you look at the United and Delta quarter earning threads. Yea of course passengers are the most profitable, but there is no doubt belly cargo is hugely important on a lot of routes, so selling it short isn’t exactly right.

Good recommendation, it confirms exactly what I posted. Thanks.

It's reckless to compare total airline revenue to cargo revenue.

Cargo Revenue is obvious going to be significantly smaller since only a small percentage of an airline like DL/UA/AA's fleet is capable of carrying a meaningful amount of cargo.

Cargo Revenue is a factor to consider when looking at the viability of marginal routes

IPFreely wrote:

I've lost count of how many times posters on here have listed route after route claiming that they're more than paid for with cargo and any passengers are just gravy. The income statements for airlines -- any of them -- say otherwise since cargo revenue is negligible.

For one thing, cargo is not a negligible revenue stream, because airlines wouldn't bother if it was.
For another, there are routes and days when cargo demand dictates the size of the aircraft more than the passengers. Finnair is one such instance, dropping an A330/A340 once or twice a week into the schedule of a daily narrowbody flight because they need the volume for the freight.

But, for every example where cargo drives the decision, there is one where it does not. For years, BA has had a problem where cargo demand exceeded the capacity of the aircraft needed to meet passenger demands on certain European destinations over the weekend. Rather than truck (too slow) or upgauge, they had a deal with DHL whereby DHL would fly the excess cargo from LHR to BRU and inject it into their network for delivery to BA outstations.

blueflyer wrote:

For one thing, cargo is not a negligible revenue stream, because airlines wouldn't bother if it was.

Your statement is nonsensical.

If someone gives you a dollar does it change your life or significantly increase your net worth? No, because it's a negligible amount of money. If you see a dollar lying on the street do you walk past it or do you bother to pick it up? You pick it up because you can. Just like you would "bother" to pick up a negligible amount of money because it's easy, airlines "bother" to pick up a negligible amount of revenue because it's also easy.

IPFreely wrote:

Your statement is nonsensical.

Writes the poster who thinks comparing airline cargo business to a stray dollar on the sidewalk makes sense...

Ask yourself... if airlines really thought it was "negligible" would they spend the millions they do on the infrastructure and support activities they need for their cargo business, or would they spend that money elsewhere? Airlines have cargo divisions because they have decided that it is a better investment than buying more planes, or larger planes, or improving passenger comfort, or expanding training for their employees, or dozens of other ways they could have spent scarce resources! They don't have a cargo division because they think cargo revenue is as easy to get as picking up a dollar on the street...

blueflyer wrote:

Writes the poster who thinks comparing airline cargo business to a stray dollar on the sidewalk makes sense...

New word for you to learn:

a·nal·o·gy
/əˈnaləjē/
noun
a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
"an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies"
a correspondence or partial similarity.
"the syndrome is called deep dysgraphia because of its analogy to deep dyslexia"
a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects.
"works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature"

blueflyer wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

Finnair is one such instance, dropping an A330/A340 once or twice a week into the schedule of a daily narrowbody flight because they need the volume for the freight.

Finnair's last A340 flight was 2017, replaced by A350. At the moment they fly A350/A330 to LHR 2x daily, BRU gets A350 1x weekly.

Delta CVG-CDG probably makes the list because its the direct flight that connects CFM international