KUALA LUMPUR (JULY 3, 2015) – Just over a month into the launch of IAG Cargo’s Kuala Lumpur-London Heathrow route, the carrier is already seeing positive results.

“Kuala Lumpur is a very, very strong destination for air cargo,” says John Cheetham, IAG Cargo’s regional commercial manager for Asia-Pacific. “Asia is the engine of growth for the world, and aside from the powerhouses of China and India, we see across Southeast Asia great opportunity for the strength and depth of air cargo.”

Malaysia’s strong economy provided an incentive to open the route, which is flown daily by a B777-200ER aircraft with a payload capacity of up to 19 tonnes. “That kind of growth is [something] we can only dream of in Europe,” Cheetham said, speaking at a media event here. “This is a very competitive economy. It’s a growing economy, and its very important that we have a position here.”

Cheetham told Asia Cargo News that through its first four weeks, the route has performed better than expected and that “it is already showing improvement.”

In the first four weeks since the route’s May 27 launch, half of the outbound flows have been high-tech goods, most of which come from nearby Penang.

For more on this story, see the July 2015 issue of Asia Cargo News.

– Gregory Glass