Disruptions to production in Japan following this month's catastrophe have so far not had a major impact on the amount of freight leaving the country by air, the head of Lufthansa Cargo said.

    "On the cargo side, we have not seen any dramatic decline in freight being loaded," chief executive Karl Ulrich Garnadt said during the annual press conference, reported Reuters.

    Supply chain disruptions in Japan have forced Toyota Motor Corp to delay the launch of two new models and are forcing other industries to shutter plants and rethink their logistics infrastructure.

    Lufthansa Cargo also said it had a good start to the year 2011, with stable earnings from freight transport amid a scarce supply of freighter plane capacity industry-wide.

    "We can certainly expect a good first quarter," Lufthansa Cargo's chief financial officer Peter Gerber said.

    Lufthansa said last week it expects the cargo division to post an operating profit for this year, albeit not at the level of 2010, when global trade jumped 13.5 percent by World Trade organisation estimates, rebounding from a deep slump in 2009.

(Source:http://www.cargonewsasia.com)