01.09.2021
Artikel Nummer: 31706
Mail on passenger seats already 60 years ago
The fact that letters and parcels are regularly placed on aircraft passenger seats is not a novelty caused by the corona crisis. Sixty years ago today, on the night of 1 to 2 September 1961, Lufthansa launched its overnight airmail network, using passenger aircraft to transport freight between 23.00 and 06.00: large parcels underfloor, boxes of letters lashed to the seats.
Leipzig joined Frankfurt as a major hub for this service after Germany's reunification. In the mid-1990s, Deutsche Post used 25 aircraft every night for domestic German airmail transport on 43 routes, flying about 12 million letters weighing 300 t per night. After 2003, the traffic was increasingly shifted almost exclusively to the roads. (ah)