Lufthansa Cargo (LH, Frankfurt International) is in preliminary talks with ANA - All Nippon Airways (NH, Tokyo Haneda) over a possible cooperation agreement Harry Hohmeister, a Lufthansa Group executive board member and head of Logistics, has revealed.

While exact details of the proposed tie-up are still scant, European freight publication, Cargoforwarder, believes that with both carriers members of Star Alliance, ANA's extensive domestic and Asia-Pacific connections would be of particular interest to the Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) subsidiary.

"It is an extremely important segment for us and growing disproportionately compared with the transpacific sector, which is doing fairly well, and European traffic which is down," Helge Kruger-Lorenzen, VP Asia Pacific of Lufthansa Cargo, said.

According to the ch-aviation airline database, ANA also operates a fleet of ten dedicated B767-300Fs on flights covering Japan, China, Hong Kong International, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. For its part, LH Cargo operates three B777-Fs and sixteen MD-11(F)s on a network spanning Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Lufthansa Cargo and ANA already cooperate on Germany to Tokyo flights making use of available bellyhold cargo capacity on passenger flights.

A definitive announcement on the tie-up is expected later this summer.