Air freight carrier Jade Cargo International announced the temporary suspension of its services “due to overall weak air cargo demand.”
The company did not provide a date for the reinstatement of operations.
The temporary grounding of its fleet of six Boeing 747-400ERFs comes amid reports of a continuing weak global air freight demand, especially from the Asia-Pacific region.
The International Air Traffic Association (IATA) has just come out with a report that the Asia-Pacific market posted the biggest decline for November 2011 with a 6.4 percent drop in demand compared from the same period a year ago.
Jade Cargo is a joint venture founded in October 2004 by Shenzhen Airlines (51 percent), Lufthansa Cargo AG (25 percent) and the German development finance institute DEG-Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (24 percent).
The company, with headquarters in Shenzhen, flies to destinations that include China, India, South Korea, The Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Luxemburg, Lithuania and the UAE.
The suspension “will also provide the shareholders with an opportunity to coordinate with stakeholders to continue with the restructuring of the company’s financial structure,” read a terse statement posted December 31, 2011 on the company’s website.
The carrier has reportedly been struggling with financial hardships, so much so that Air China, which took over from Shenzhen Airlines, is thinking of selling its share.
Photo from Jade Cargo
