American Airlines Cargo continues to break records at London Heathrow

Mar 04, 2017: American Airlines Cargo continues to set new records with its London Heathrow (LHR) team breaking its fourth daily record this week since August of 2016.

The team moved nearly 1.1 million pounds of freight into and out of LHR, a new record for a single day's throughput. The shipments included temperature-sensitive commodities like fresh salmon, vegetables and pharmaceuticals, as well as some heavy metal industrial forgings.

The airline has transported an impressive 600,000-plus pounds of cargo from the UK to the US, while imports into Heathrow weighed in at almost 475,000 pounds.

Coming into LHR, the team handled various shipments from the US and other far-off locations, including lettuce and asparagus, and oil and gas equipment destined for Aberdeen and the North Sea oil fields.

All of the airline's major hubs served from the UK had consistently high outbound load factors that contributed to this record, with particularly strong demand for services to Charlotte (CLT), Philadelphia (PHL), New York (JFK) and Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)—American’s home base.

"We have a really well-oiled machine here at Heathrow when it comes to managing these increasingly large throughput days," states Paul Griffin, manager, Cargo Operations – UK and Ireland.

"We have more than 150 team members across two facilities who handle these volumes and provide consistently high levels of service to our customers. And with further enhancements now under way to both buildings, including enhancements to our ambient storage offerings, we are strongly positioned to handle even more growth in the future."