IN Brief:
- Global airfreight rates climbed in week 22, with year-on-year pricing still sharply above 2025 levels.
- Asia Pacific demand remains supported by high-value technology, semiconductor, AI infrastructure, and time-sensitive industrial cargo.
- Capacity recovery is not yet translating into lower pricing across key Europe- and US-bound lanes.
WorldACD data shows global airfreight pricing remaining elevated even as traffic recovers from earlier disruption and capacity begins to stabilise across several regions.
The average global airfreight rate climbed 2% week-on-week in week 22 to US$3.29 per kilo. Year-on-year pricing remained 35% higher, with double-digit increases across all major origin regions. Asia Pacific-to-Europe and Asia Pacific-to-US pricing each edged up 1% week-on-week, while annual increases remained 39% and 36% respectively.
Chargeable weight out of Asia Pacific was up 8% year-to-date, making the region the strongest source of cargo growth in WorldACD’s latest weekly trend data. Other regions showed more mixed performance, with global tonnage growth slowing in May after April’s recovery. The pattern points to a market where capacity is returning, but not evenly enough to bring pricing back toward last year’s levels.
The strength of Asia Pacific air cargo is being reinforced by high-value industrial flows rather than broad consumer demand alone. Semiconductors, memory, networking equipment, servers, data-centre components, and other AI infrastructure cargo continue to compete for available uplift. Many of those shipments have limited tolerance for delay because production, installation, and service commitments are tied to narrow build windows.
The pricing picture is also being shaped by the imbalance between cargo that can wait and cargo that cannot. Lower-value inventory can move by ocean, deferred air, or multimodal routing where lead times allow. Higher-value technology cargo, urgent spares, healthcare products, and critical industrial components tend to stay in airfreight even when rates rise, because the cost of delay can outweigh the cost of transport.
Recent IN Supply coverage has already pointed to the same pressure in AI demand drives new air cargo pressure, where high-value electronics and data-centre hardware were shown absorbing capacity across intra-Asia and transpacific lanes. The pressure is not simply a demand spike; it is a change in the composition of air cargo, with more shipments tied to capital-intensive technology rollouts and less room for freight planners to push everything into slower modes.
Asia Pacific freight conditions have also been affected by congestion, airspace disruption, and routing volatility. IN Supply’s recent Dimerco flags India cargo pressure story highlighted longer transit times, fuel volatility, and cargo movement disruption across India and wider APAC markets. Those pressures create a less forgiving environment for shippers that rely on predictable lift from Asia into Europe and North America.
Capacity recovery therefore needs to be read carefully. A headline increase in available space does not mean capacity is available at the right origin, on the right carrier, with the right handling conditions, and at the right booking horizon. Airfreight buyers are operating in a market where regional averages can hide lane-specific stress, particularly when ecommerce, semiconductors, healthcare, and urgent industrial shipments converge on the same gateways.
The result is a planning environment that rewards earlier booking, clearer cargo prioritisation, and stronger mode-selection discipline. Freight that is treated as urgent too late in the process is likely to face higher cost exposure, while cargo that is genuinely urgent needs capacity commitments before the market tightens further. That is especially true where production programmes depend on imported electronics, automation components, or replacement parts that cannot be sourced locally at short notice.
Air cargo pricing is also becoming more closely tied to procurement strategy. Buyers that build sourcing models around Asia Pacific production need to account for the cost of premium transport when demand spikes or routing changes. The tariff, fuel, and capacity shocks affecting ocean freight are pushing some cargo back into air, but airfreight itself is carrying enough structural demand to prevent a clean return to softer pricing.
The present market is not a simple shortage story. It is a market with recovering capacity, resilient high-value demand, and uneven regional conditions. That combination leaves logistics teams managing cost and reliability together, rather than waiting for rate relief to solve the problem.
