Air Cargo World publishes list of Top 50 Cargo Airlines.

I finally found enough time to browse through the September 2005 issue of Air Cargo World and the front page story is their listing of the top 50 cargo airlines in 2004.

I hope Air Cargo World doesn't mind me posting a quick list of them here, get the September issue of the magazine for the full story.

Before I post the list, you should know it is based on total freight tonne-kilometers flown - they do not differentiate between domestic and international. What is a freight tonne-kilometer ? Simple : 1 freight tonne-kilometer means 1 tonne of freight was flown 1 kilometer. And also, the freight tonne-kilometers flown (FTKs) are shown in millions of FTKs :
The list can be found here : http://www.aircargoworld.com/features/0905_1.htm

Here is a quick list of the top 25 from the downloadable pdf page, with just the name of the airline and the number of FTKs (in millions of FTKs) :

1. FedEx Express - 14,579
2. Korean Air - 8,264
3. Lufthansa - 8,040
4. UPS - 7,353
5. Singapore Airlines - 7,143
6. Cathay Pacific - 5,876
7. China Airlines - 5,642
8. Atlas Air - 5,536
9. EVA Air - 5,477
10. Air France - 5,388
11. Japan Airlines - 4,924
12. British Airways - 4,778
13. Cargolux - 4,670
14. KLM - 4,535
15. Emirates - 3,508
16. Polar Air Cargo - 3,413
17. Martinair - 3,363
18. Northwest Airlines - 3,325
19. American Airlines - 2,854
20. Asiana Airlines - 2,668
21. Malaysia Airline System - 2,597
22. United Airlines - 2,571
23. Air China - 2,551
24. Nippon Cargo Airlines - 2,400
25. China Eastern Airlines - 1,877

Top gainers in the top 50 percentage-wise from 2003 to 2004 include China Eastern Airlines (+43.5%), Qantas (+40.6%), Emirates (+35.7%), Dragon Air (+25.1%), Aeroflot (+22.2%), Gulf Air (+21.3%), Iberia Airlines (+19.9%) Korean Air (+19.8%), Malaysia Airline Systems (+19.5%), and China Airlines (+19.4%).