News / Strong January masks air cargo weakness and volatility

© Natalia Dobrovolska

The air cargo market could see a structural shift as the ecommerce boom starts to fade, which could cause problems for anyone exposed to large amounts of capacity.

While global air cargo demand entered the new year on a stronger footing than many expected, analysts are warning that January’s apparent resilience is masking mounting pressure from weakening ecommerce flows and tariff-driven volatility. 

According to Xeneta, global chargeable weight rose 7% year on year last month, the strongest growth since January 2025, outpacing a 5% increase in capacity supply.

As a result, the global dynamic load factor edged up one percentage point, to 57%, while global air cargo spot rates slipped by just 1% year on year, to $2.56 per kg, signalling a pause in recent pricing declines. 

However, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, Niall van de Wouw, cautioned against interpreting January’s performance as a clear signal of underlying market strength. 

“Asia is such a big exporter of airfreight, it is difficult to draw any conclusions on what the market was signalling in January because of the lunar new year [holiday] and the fluctuations it causes,” he said.

“In 2025, the festivities began on 28 January, this year, they begin on 15 February, so much of January’s strength in air cargo volumes is likely calendar-related, rather than a clear indicator of improvements in underlying demand.” 

Mr van de Wouw added that pricing trends may provide a more reliable signal than volumes. He said: “Air freight rates are typically quoted in local currencies, so a weaker dollar can make a world average – converted back into dollars – look firmer than it truly is.” 

Beyond the seasonal impetus, the air cargo market is facing a more fundamental challenge: the first meaningful slowdown in cross-border ecommerce exports from China since early 2022. 

China Customs data for December shows low-value and ecommerce exports falling 9% year on year, following two months of flat growth. For an industry that has been “turbocharged by cross-border ecommerce since late 2023”, ccording to Xeneta, and which now relies on ecommerce for an estimated 20%-25% of annual global volumes, the implications could be significant. 

“With the US de minimis ban now firmly in place, China-to-US ecommerce exports extended their steep decline, down more than 50% for a third consecutive month in December,” Xeneta said. For full-year 2025, China-to-US ecommerce exports were down 28% year on year. 

Efforts by Chinese ecommerce platforms to redirect volumes towards Europe are also losing momentum. Growth in China-to-Europe ecommerce slowed to about 8% in December, compared with 54% growth over the first 11 months of 2025, while excluding Russia, ecommerce sales from China to the rest of Europe declined 23% year on year. 

“In October, we said air cargo’s ecommerce growth engine was showing signs of slowing down, but that it could be just a blip,” said Mr van de Wouw. “We saw this again in November, and we said if it happened for a third consecutive month, in December, this would signal a trend. This is now the situation. 

“If it remains flat or declines further, it will certainly affect many organisations’ growth plans, including those with commitments to freighter conversions that will be relying on the high level of ecommerce demand we have seen in recent years.” 

Xeneta added that regulation was “undoubtedly a factor adding friction to ecommerce trade”, citing US de minimis bans, the EU’s proposed processing fee, and new rules in Japan and Thailand. 

While global spot rates softened overall in January, pricing developments on some lanes point to a market shaped by tariff risk rather than organic demand growth. 

On the transatlantic westbound trade, Xeneta recorded a 3% year-on-year rise in spot rates, despite a 4% fall in chargeable weight. The analyst linked this to the recent US tariff threat – an additional 10% on imports from eight European countries – before it was reversed on 21 January. 

“This demonstrates both the responsiveness and nervousness of shippers trying to protect their product margins,” Xeneta said. 

The Baltic Air Freight Index (BAI) analysis reinforces this picture, describing January activity as evidence of “frantic front-loading of cargo ahead of the implementation of proposed US tariffs on 1 February”.

According to Xeneta, volumes rose 16% week on week in the period ending 25 January, “a period that typically sees only low single-digit growth”. 

The impact was particularly visible on Europe-US lanes, with Frankfurt-US rates surging 24.09% and London Heathrow rates climbing 18.4% in a single week in mid-January. However, the subsequent withdrawal of the tariff threat highlights the increasingly short-lived and policy-driven nature of these price spikes. 

Both Xeneta and BAI emphasised that capacity remained structurally tight, with freighter availability constrained by aircraft backlogs, ageing fleets, and rising fuel and maintenance costs.  

Meanwhile, developments in ocean shipping remain a key wildcard for air cargo demand, with some carriers beginning a tentative return to Suez Canal transits. 

Xeneta said that even if conditions improved, “a rapid modal shift from air back to ocean still looks unlikely in Q1 26”, citing long transit times, congestion, and operational complexity. 

In the near term, this uncertainty may help prevent the demand gap created by weaker ecommerce volumes from widening – but as January has shown, policy and regulation may now be the more powerful forces shaping air cargo markets in 2026.