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CMA CGM Air Cargo discontinues US service

Ocean carrier concentrates aircraft on Asia, Middle East routes

Eric Kulisch
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Ground support staff load pallets on a CMA CGM Air Cargo freighter in Hong Kong. (Photo: Hactl)

CMA CGM Air Cargo, the fledgling freighter venture of the French shipping line by the same name, has pulled out of the U.S. market again and redeployed aircraft to Asia and the Middle East, the company confirmed.

FreightWaves reported last week that CMA CGM’s website no longer showed Chicago and Miami as destinations for its freighter fleet. The last time a CMA CGM aircraft departed Chicago was on April 29, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24. The freighter deployed on the Chicago route is now being used on a new route to Mumbai, India.

CMA CGM Air Cargo resumed service to the United States in January after abruptly suspending operations to Chicago and Atlanta late last year so two Airbus A330 planes could temporarily work for Qatar Airways and DHL Express. The company said at the time that the decision had more to do with steps required to register the aircraft in France. In January, it told FreightWaves that Chicago and Miami “will remain key destinations of our network.”

One year into a shipping downturn, CMA CGM Air Cargo is still searching for optimal routes to deploy its small fleet of four A330-200s and two Boeing 777 cargo jets.


CMA CGM Air Cargo discontinued its own scheduled service to the U.S. in late March “to deploy its fleet to Asia, the Middle East and India,” the company said in a statement provided to FreightWaves.

Since May 15, the airline has been offering airlift from its home base at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Abu Dhabi, which is a stop on the route to Guangzhou, China. Service from Abu Dhabi to Paris will be available in the near future, the company said.

In early April, CMA CGM and Air France-KLM kicked off their 10-year alliance under which they will jointly market freighter capacity and combine networks and dedicated services to increase scale and competitiveness. 

CMA CGM has two more 777s on order from Boeing and an order with Airbus for four all-new A350 freighters.


Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.

Contact Eric: ekulisch@freightwaves.com 

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Eric Kulisch

Eric is the Supply Chain and Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves. An award-winning business journalist with extensive experience covering the logistics sector, Eric spent nearly two years as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Automotive News, where he focused on regulatory and policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles, mobility, fuel economy and safety. He has won two regional Gold Medals and a Silver Medal from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for government and trade coverage, and news analysis. He was voted best for feature writing and commentary in the Trade/Newsletter category by the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was runner up for News Journalist and Supply Chain Journalist of the Year in the Seahorse Freight Association's 2024 journalism award competition. In December 2022, Eric was voted runner up for Air Cargo Journalist. He won the group's Environmental Journalist of the Year award in 2014 and was the 2013 Supply Chain Journalist of the Year. As associate editor at American Shipper Magazine for more than a decade, he wrote about trade, freight transportation and supply chains. He has appeared on Marketplace, ABC News and National Public Radio to talk about logistics issues in the news. Eric is based in Vancouver, Washington. He can be reached for comments and tips at ekulisch@freightwaves.com