THIS winter Air France-KLM Cargo and Martinair Cargo are heading where the sun is with a focus on Latin America and the southern part of the African continent.

Effective 30 October Air France will increase its presence in South Africa with three weekly flights Paris (France) -Cape Town (South Africa) using a 777. KLM will fly Amsterdam (the Netherlands)-Luanda (Angola) twice a week using a 777.

Seasonal changes include KLM taking over a Martinair passenger flight from Amsterdam-Havana (Cuba), using a KLM MD-11 with routing taking in Punta Cana (Dominican Republic).

KLM flights will include: Buenos-Aires (Argentina) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Air France will fly Paris-Cancun (Mexico) three times a week using a 777.

Air France will launch a twice-weekly freighter flight Paris-Mumbai (India) en route to Hong Kong (China), using a 747-400ERF. As of 2 September, Martinair Cargo has operated three times a week Amsterdam-Dubai (UAE) on a 747-400ERF.

Air France KLM September cargo traffic dropped 3.4 per cent to 931 million revenue metric tonne kilometres, while capacity was up one per cent to 1.44 billion available tonne kilometres. Load factor slipped three per cent to 64.7 per cent.