News / Pharmaceutical volumes and rates weaken this year as pressure grows

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Rate premiums in the pharma sector are declining, compared with those in general cargo, as another vertical gains favour.

Attendees at last week’s Aviation Connect event in Copenhagen heard that, according to data from World ACD, 2025 pharma tonnages remain “firmly above” 2019 levels, while rates are “well above”.

However, the intelligence company noted that both are weakening, compared with 2024, and the pharma rate premium versus general cargo cost is reducing. 

In January 2023, the average rate for general cargo was $2.90, versus pharma at $4.73, whereas in September 2025, this was $2.35 and $3.31, respectively.  

Rogier Blocq, chief product officer at WorldACD, told delegates: “If you look at the rate development, there has been more pressure than if you look at the full market. So, while demand is there, and growing, you see the rates, compared to the global markets, are going down, as from the third quarter of 2023. 

“This might have to do with a lot of parties and companies investing in pharma and change in capacity and facilities. So, clearly on the supply side, there have been some developments that result in the downward pressure,” he explained.  

During this two-year period of general rate decline, the pharma rates saw the largest drop of any vertical, down 30%. Perishables and general cargo fell 19%, hi-tech by 10% and valuable goods by just 3%.  

“There is clearly pressure on the rates that makes this pharma share smaller as part of the full picture,” said Mr Blocq. “The sector growing strongly in terms of revenue share was hi-tech which is mainly driven by ecommerce, pushing down the rest of the segments.”

Another trend Mr Blocq observed in the pharma vertical was the much larger share of the market represented by large and ultra-large and forwarders. 

Worldwide, ultra large forwarders represent 25.3% of the market across all products, and large forwarders 13.4%. In the pharma vertical, ultra large have 58.6% and large 8.6%. 

“For the full market, it’s much more distributed among all sizes, but if you look at pharma, it’s much more concentrated. The larger forwarders have almost 70% of the market. It’s huge.” 

However, WorldACD data indicated a slight trend of smaller forwarders that specialise in pharma gaining market share.  The 2024 data showed direct sales made up 2.5% of the pharma market, which grew to 2.8% this year.  

Mr Blocq explained that while this dynamic was reflective of the overall market, for pharma “this distribution is quite specific”.