Skift Take
The 2% of Lufthansa's freight income that rolls in thanks to animals is nothing to sneeze at, even if you are an allergic flyer.
Aristotle Onassis’s only surviving descendant is providing a boost to Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s cargo unit with a regular contract to transport dozens of show jumping horses to Brazil at a cost of as much as $1.3 million.
Athina Onassis de Miranda, the main heir to her shipping magnate grandfather, funds the transfer of horses to Rio de Janeiro for a tournament she helped set up and which bears her name, said Axel Heitmann, head of Lufthansa’s animal-cargo unit.
“Once a year she invites the community to her big event,” Heitmann said in an interview. In total, Lufthansa transports about 2,000 horses a year in what has become a “very profitable business,” since the size and bulk of a consignment determines the price, he said at the company’s Frankfurt Animal Lounge.
Flying one horse across the Atlantic can cost 10,000 euros ($13,000), as much as a first-class return for a two-legged passenger, and as many as 100 attend the South American event, Heitmann said. While animal transport contributes 2 percent of Lufthansa’s annual freight revenue, the market is less volatile than the cyclical cargo bus
