Air cargo volumes continued to confound expectations in June thanks to “exceptional demand” for semiconductor and AI-related hardware.
The latest figures from data provider Xeneta show that demand was up 7% year on year, capacity was up 3% as Middle East operations continue to recover and the dynamic cargo load factor improved by three percentage points to 62%.
Meanwhile, average air cargo spot rates in June were flat on a month earlier at $3.40 per kg and are up 38% year on year, although this is down from the 41% year-on-year improvement registered in May.
Xeneta said the big surprise in air cargo performance this year continues to be AI volumes that are making up for a fall in e-commerce traffic, air cargo’s main growth engine over the past two to three years.
Xeneta chief airfreight officer, Niall van de Wouw, said June’s demand growth was “remarkable” and suggested that current air cargo volumes are “defying gravity”.
“The scale of AI’s impact is easy to underestimate because it sits inside a small slice of total air cargo volume – below 10% of what flies. But the facts that confirm its role as the main driver of air cargo growth are undeniable,” he said.
“Global semiconductor sales more than doubled year-on-year in April, up 106%, the strongest growth since the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organisation began keeping records in 1986. That surge has made the transpacific this year’s strongest air freight corridor, even as China–US volumes weakened under tariffs.”
Much of the volume is originating in Taiwan and South Korea, Xeneta said.
However, there have been some questions asked recently about whether the AI bubble could burst.
“No one knows how long it will last,” he said. “The investment cycle in AI might take a hit and that could abruptly change the demand we are seeing and add risk, but there are no signs of the AI boost plateauing and pushing airfreight demand downwards just yet.”
Over the first six months of the year, air cargo demand is up 4%, which beats expectations of a fairly quiet year for air cargo demand growth.
Rate performance
While the overall year-on-year percentage improvement in air cargo spot rates eased slightly in June, prices from Northeast Asia to the US were up 41% in the final week of June compared with February, while from Southeast Asia to North America there was a 42% increase over the same time period.
While airfreight rates are showing signs of easing globally month-on-month, rates on the Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia to North America corridors gained most from AI-linked shipments. These rose 41% and 42% respectively in the final week of June, compared with late February.
The other development that has grabbed the headlines in air cargo this year has been the outbreak of the US-Iran conflict.
This is keeping rates into the Middle East elevated, although there are signs that they are easing.
Xeneta said that rates into the region from South Asia (+88%), Southeast Asia (+46%) and Europe (+79%) remain far above pre-conflict levels, but “the direction of travel is downward month-on-month as capacity returns”.
Van de Wouw said: “What we were thinking at the start of the year was not that global airfreight spot rates would be up 38% in June, but now we do see them starting to come down as we expected, albeit at a slower pace than they went up.”
E-commerce weakens
The lift provided by AI and semiconductor-related volumes has come at just the right time for air cargo as e-commerce, which has fuelled air cargo demand in recent years, is showing signs of weakness, according to Xeneta.
The company said that China’s low-value and e-commerce exports fell by 7% year on year in May, a sixth consecutive monthly decline, according to the latest China Customs data.
Shipments to Europe fell 15% and those to Asia Pacific were down 4%, while flows to the US rebounded by 26%, but volumes remain below the levels prior to the de minimis exemption ban.
“Part of the apparent decline may reflect a shift rather than a disappearance of volumes as individual B2C parcels are being moved into bulk, consolidated airfreight shipments that fall outside the e-commerce parcel data,” Xeneta said.
And further pressure will come as the European Union has introduced a flat €3 duty on every item shipped from outside the bloc and a further €2 handling fee is expected around November.
Van de Wouw expects the e-commerce sector to adapt but the days of e-commerce powering airfreight growth are over for now.
Short-term deals continue to rise
Another trend identified by Xeneta is a rise in shorter term deals between shippers and forwarders due to the lack of visibility.
The share of newly-agreed shipper and forwarder contracts valid for up to three months rose to 58% in the second quarter of 2026, doubling from 22% in the same quarter a year ago, while the share of chargeable weight moving on the spot market reached 49% in the second quarter of 2026, up from 34% before the pandemic.
Van de Wouw said: “Seeing (nearly) 50% of total chargeable weight on the short-term market is remarkable and is the clearest indication that nobody really knows where the market is heading, and no one is willing to commit longer-term.”
