News / Shutdowns? Tariffs? Snow? Airfreight will adapt, as it celebrates a 'very good year'

© Achiraya Likittam

The airfreight rollercoaster continues: the latest surprise is the US FAA decision to cut 4% of flights at 40 major airports from 6am today, ramping up to 10% from 14 November – if the government shutdown is still in place.

However, while there will be an impact on domestic passenger travel, with thousands of flights facing cancellation, so far international flights are not affected. And there is also no evidence yet that domestic integrator flights have been cut.

“When capacity is cut and federal employees are stretched thin, the supply chain slows, and the longer this shutdown continues, the worse it will get,” said Brandon Fried, executive director of the Airforwarders Association.

Meanwhile, Anchorage airport has just seen its first snowfall of the winter, and is apparently struggling to cope, according to a source, with numerous freighters waiting to park. However, the airport has reported its delay status as “very low and decreasing”.

But these are just two more concerns facing an air cargo industry which has proved it can adapt.

Despite the string of highs and lows for air cargo this year, it has in fact been a pretty good year for airlines. As Silk Way West boss Wolfgang Meier told delegates this week at TIACA’s ACF in Abu Dhabi: “It’s been a rollercoaster. This year has been a very good year. I’m happy overall. I would be happy if 2026 would be the same. Who the hell knows?

“What was quite interesting was to see how quickly the industry adjusted to the new rules of the game. Our industry is very agile. and dynamic.”

The phrase “freight moves like water” was used numerous times at the event to show how, whatever barriers are put up, air freight continues to find a way.

“It’s very difficult to get used to a sudden change when you wake up in the morning and you see another piece of news,” said Asok Kumar, CEO of forwarder Morrison Express.  “But certainly the air cargo industry in particular has become very resilient from that perspective. Covid obviously was the real slap on the face that woke us up to being adaptable and able to make changes.”

Air cargo has seen growth in the past consecutive 26 months, nearly a record length of time, and this year that has been owing to its, and its customers’, ability to adapt.

“2025 continues to be the year that fails to disappoint in terms of demand,” said Ryan Keyrouse, CEO of Rotate, noting some “really interesting contributing factors”. Demand this year had grown 3.9%, he said, while capacity grew 6%, but the industry had also been boosted by low fuel prices.

Source: Rotate

He added that although there was a lot of front-loading into the US, the inventory-to-sales ratio shows that “inventories have not been building up – actually it’s been negative, which is good for air cargo typically”.

“Front-loading has actually just satisfied growing demand in the US.”

Other strengths in the market have been the ability of ecommerce players to pivot quickly to other regions, notably ecommerce to Europe, and huge growth in South-east Asia. The loss of ecommerce traffic to the US was more than made up for by other markets, explained Mr Keyrouse.

Source: Rotate

And now ecommerce to the US is on the rise again this quarter, ahead of Thanksgiving, and since companies have implemented compliance programmes to help ease the flow of ecommerce to the US.

The US saw a 43% drop in ecommerce after the end of the de minimis exemption, according to Aevean, but it has been climbing again steadily since.

And rates have continued to rise, albeit without the lurch to a peak seen in previous years. October saw the Baltic Air Freight Index rise 3.1% over September, with “Asia-origin traffic [leading] the increase as tariff relief, new trade deals, and holiday restocking supported both long- and short-haul lanes”, said the Baltic Exchange, pointing to the TAC Index.

“Hong Kong (+5.85%) and Shanghai (+3.84%) continued to outperform, underpinned by robust transpacific and Asia–Europe flows. Hong Kong–US (+7.40%) and Shanghai–US (+4.24%) lanes saw the sharpest gains as shippers advanced shipments before tariff rule adjustments.

“Asia–North America flows rebounded strongly as shippers advanced volumes before November tariff adjustments. Shanghai–North America (+6.5%) and Hong Kong–North America (+6.47%) led growth, while Hong Kong–US (+7.4%) posted the month’s largest individual gain. This front-loading effect, combined with steady e-commerce orders, helped offset weakness elsewhere and set up continued pressure on capacity into November.”

This week’s news that France is becoming tougher on inbound ecommerce and the US is cancelling flights is just another curveball for the industry to navigate. This year, the industry is taking all these changes in its stride.

“The market in 2025, looking ahead to 2026 as well, is still positive … although the peak is relatively slow,” said Stefan Krikken, head of air at DSV.

“Having said that, there’s still a lot of positive momentum in airfreight when it comes to trends in relation to cloud computing, ecommerce, and trade shifts. Flexibility, and being agile, are more key than ever. Going into 2026, I think it’s still a positive market, but you have to be very agile.”