Global air cargo volumes fall as pricing pressure builds
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Global air cargo entered August with weaker volumes and slightly softer pricing, reinforcing the view that the market is moving into a more uneven phase in which regional performance, trade-lane economics and capacity decisions matter more than broad global averages.
Worldwide chargeable weight fell 4% week on week during Aug. 3-9, according to WorldACD Market Data, with every origin region recording a decline as Middle East and South Asia traffic fell 6%, Europe and North America each contracted 4% and Asia Pacific volumes slipped 3%.
Those figures point to broad short-term weakness, yet the longer-term picture remains more resilient because global traffic was still 1% above the same week in 2025 and average airfreight rates remained 22% higher year over year.
Recent IATA data provides further context, showing that global air cargo demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers, rose 8.5% year over year in June, while international demand increased 9.6% and capacity grew 4.4%.
Taken together, these figures suggest that the market is not experiencing a uniform downturn but is instead becoming less predictable across regions, routes and customer segments, with stronger annual growth sitting alongside weaker weekly performance.
Weekly declines show where pressure is building
Short-term volatility has become a recurring feature of the air cargo market, with WorldACD reporting that global tonnage moved within a relatively narrow range during the four weeks leading into Week 32 as weekly expansion and contraction alternated.
For airlines, freight forwarders and shippers, this pattern complicates efforts to distinguish temporary disruption from a more meaningful shift in underlying demand, particularly when week-on-week data points in one direction while annual comparisons point in another.
A 4% weekly decline remains significant, especially when every major origin region is moving lower at the same time, but year-over-year performance was still positive in most markets, with Europe the only origin region to record a slight annual decline at 1%.
The two-week comparison supports the same interpretation because global chargeable weight fell 1% compared with the previous two weeks, Asia Pacific declined 2% and North America fell 3%, while Middle East and South Asia and Europe both recorded 1% growth.
IATA’s June results reinforce the importance of looking beyond short-term movements, with North American carriers recording a 13.1% annual increase in air cargo demand, Asia Pacific carriers reporting 7.9% growth and European airlines posting a 6.9% rise.
Global demand growth also outpaced capacity growth, which suggests that the market still had meaningful underlying strength even as weekly tonnage figures became more volatile.
The economic backdrop, however, gives carriers fewer reasons to assume that this pace can be sustained across every trade lane, particularly because IATA reported that global merchandise trade grew 5.2% year over year in June while new export orders remained in contraction territory.
The New Export Orders Purchasing Managers’ Index stood at 49.4, marking a fourth consecutive month below the 50 threshold and indicating that manufacturing-related demand remains weaker than the headline trade figures might suggest.
This divergence points to an air cargo market increasingly supported by particular commodities, urgent shipments and selected trade flows rather than a uniform expansion in global manufacturing exports.
For operators, route-level analysis is becoming more useful than broad global averages because capacity can remain tight on one corridor while another faces weaker load factors, falling spot rates and greater competition for available cargo.
Asian trade lanes are becoming the market’s pressure point
Asia Pacific is becoming central to the changing demand picture because volumes from the region to both Europe and the US fell 4% week on week in early August, with weakness spread across several major origins.
Japan moved against that trend, with chargeable weight to the US rising 12% and traffic to Europe increasing 3%, while other Asian markets recorded much steeper declines that highlighted how uneven regional performance has become.
Taiwan-origin tonnage to the US fell 11%, Indonesia declined 10%, Indonesia-to-Europe volumes dropped 18%, Taiwan-to-Europe fell 14% and Malaysia-to-Europe declined 12%.
China faced a combination of commercial and operational pressure, with Typhoon Dolphin disrupting transport networks and contributing to more than 1,000 flight cancellations in Shanghai, while chargeable weight out of the city fell 8% week on week, including a 7% decline to Europe and a 4% reduction to North America.
Weather disruption does not explain the wider trend on its own because China-Europe air cargo is also being affected by structural changes linked to e-commerce regulation and the economics of cross-border parcel traffic.
WorldACD reported that chargeable weight from mainland China to Europe was 8% lower year over year, while Hong Kong-to-Europe volumes were down 29%, creating a sharper contrast with the stronger annual growth recorded across the global market.
Changes to European import rules have altered the economics of some cross-border e-commerce shipments by increasing costs and administrative requirements for certain parcel flows, which matters in a sector that has relied heavily on rapid growth in Asian e-commerce volumes.
Large platforms can respond by redesigning supply chains, consolidating inventory closer to consumers or redirecting traffic toward markets with stronger economics, while smaller shippers may have fewer options and less flexibility to absorb higher compliance costs.
These changes can influence aircraft deployment as much as demand because airlines and charter operators can reposition freighter capacity toward routes offering stronger yields or more stable cargo flows.
WorldACD pricing data provides an early indication of that effect, with spot rates from Asia Pacific to Europe increasing 1% week on week despite weaker volumes, while rates from China rose 6% and Hong Kong rates increased 3%.
Asia Pacific-to-US spot rates moved in the opposite direction and fell 3%, creating a pricing pattern that may indicate some freighter capacity has shifted toward the transpacific market as operators respond to changing demand and yield conditions.
This is one reason weaker demand on a route does not automatically lead to lower prices because a sufficiently fast withdrawal of capacity can support rates or even push them higher despite softer cargo volumes.
Capacity and pricing now matter as much as headline demand
Global airfreight capacity fell only 1% during Week 32 compared with the 4% decline in tonnage, leaving carriers and forwarders to manage a market in which supply and demand are no longer moving at the same pace.
Average worldwide rates slipped from $2.96 to $2.95 per kilogram, following a decline from $3 per kilogram in Week 29, but the movement remained relatively small compared with the scale of the weekly volume decline.
Fuel costs have also influenced recent pricing because WorldACD linked some rate movement to lower fuel costs, while IATA reported that jet fuel prices fell 20% month on month in June even though they remained 45.8% higher than a year earlier.
The wider pricing picture remains firm because global rates in Week 32 were still 22% above their year-earlier level, while rates originating in Middle East and South Asia were 48% higher year over year.
For freight buyers, these figures show why softer volumes do not necessarily translate quickly into lower transportation costs, particularly when capacity allocation, aircraft availability, fuel prices, regulatory changes and route-specific demand can exert more influence on rates than aggregate tonnage.
Carriers face the same equation from the opposite direction because moving aircraft toward a stronger trade lane can protect yields, yet capacity shifts can rapidly alter pricing conditions in the destination market by increasing competition for cargo.
Additional freighter capacity on transpacific routes, for example, could place further pressure on spot rates even if underlying demand remains relatively healthy, while reduced capacity on Europe-bound lanes could support pricing despite weaker volumes.
IATA’s June figures show that the broader air cargo market still has considerable momentum, with global demand up 8.5%, Asia-North America traffic rising 14.7%, Europe-Asia demand increasing 7.1% and traffic within Asia growing 7.2% year over year.
Those gains now sit alongside weaker export orders, volatile weekly tonnage and sharper declines on selected Asia-Europe routes, creating a market that is better understood through regional and trade-lane performance than through a single global growth figure.
For air cargo businesses, the central question is becoming less about whether global demand is rising or falling and more about where cargo is moving, where capacity is being repositioned and how quickly pricing is responding to those shifts.
The global market may still be growing, but that growth is becoming increasingly uneven, and operators that treat air cargo as a single global cycle risk overlooking the regional and route-level changes that are now shaping rates, capacity and profitability.
Source:
Air Cargo Week
