Air Cargo Carriers News

Peak season has come early to air freight markets and with ocean shipping disrupted and e-commerce filling planes out of Asia, the demand is set to extend through the second half and beyond.

Not even the widespread disruption to global aviation from the Microsoft IT outage in mid-July could derail resurgent air freight markets.

More than 70% of air cargo space controlled by Kuehne + Nagel subsidiary Apex has been presold for the third and fourth quarters.

The air freight division of ocean carrier MSC now has a fleet of five branded Boeing 777 freighters that the carrier has deployed across major routes.

Shippers that have not yet arranged air freight capacity out of Asia for the fourth quarter could be in for an expensive ride, according to Xeneta.

Regulators in the US and Europe are placing online shopping marketplaces under increasing scrutiny as huge volumes of e-commerce packages, imported mainly from China, fill aircraft on trade lanes out of Asia.

With more than 80% of e-commerce transported as air cargo, there are growing safety and transparency issues given the minimal view provided of what is actually inside the parcels.

The state-owned rail operator believes it can leverage soaring demand for China-Europe rail freight to develop a multimodal service offering underpinned by a strong air cargo network.

The airline industry is pinning its hopes on sustainable aviation fuel providing a long-term path to net zero, but there will not be enough biofuel to go around, European climate campaigners Transport & Environment have found.

It is a good time to be in the freight transport business with air cargo and ocean shipping on the trade lanes out of Asia seeing sustained demand and robust rate levels.

US package shippers are shifting from air to ground and from premium-priced to deferred services, UPS says, boosting its SurePost volumes by 10%.

Demand that began to build at the end of last year spilled into the first quarter and K+N says its forward bookings indicate the positive volume development will continue as the year progresses.

Given the huge volumes involved in ocean freight, even a small percentage shift in transport mode from South Asia shippers is enough to keep air cargo demand and rates buoyant.

With Asia-Europe services already served by 12 weekly flights out of Paris, the addition of an Asia-US network will fill a crucial gap in the airline’s global coverage.

The air freight market is off to a strong start this year with volume out of Asia up 11% in the traditionally slow first quarter while rates rose steadily through March.

The freight hauled by the largest LTL trucking company in the US will become more global under a reorganization of FedEx’s varied domestic and international networks.

Maersk’s integrator strategy has encompassed more access to air freight capacity, including a new tool for shippers in India to digitally price and book specific flights.

A seasonal push to get shipments out of Asia before factories close for the Lunar New Year may be masking a switch to air from disrupted ocean networks.

The two French giants are in discussions to set up a new partnership, with each party operating its own independent air cargo network.

Air freight volumes are not expected to show any significant growth until well into 2024, and some analysts question whether there will even be a peak season for exports from Asia at the end of the year.

Workers loading and unloading planes at DHL Express’s Cincinnati-Kentucky hub will get higher wages and better benefits in a deal that ends a strike that threatened to disrupt the carrier’s US operations.

Rates on the eastbound trans-Pacific are at levels not seen since September 2022, but indicators suggest the market strength will not extend too far into 2024.

But rising air cargo rates on the major Asian export trade lanes do not portend a peak season this year with analysts pointing to poor economic conditions exerting strong downward pressure on consumers in the US and Europe.

A month ago, no one was predicting a peak season for air cargo on the trans-Pacific, but finding space from China to the US has become difficult as e-commerce demand heats up.

Rising airline costs and increasing air cargo demand over the last three months have largely insulated rate levels against a steady and significant increase in available air freight capacity.

A widening imbalance between available air freight capacity and demand has dragged global rates to their lowest level since the start of the pandemic, with no signs of volumes improving on key outbound routes from Asia.

Spot rates have fallen significantly over the past year, but there is still some way to go before prices are back to 2019 levels.

AlisCargo will join MSC’s air freight division in early 2024 as the ocean carrier steadily builds out its global air network.

Air cargo capacity continues to grow through the summer, outpacing weak demand from major destination markets with no sign yet of any turnaround.

Forwarders in 2021 signed long-term air cargo charters to meet rising demand for air freight resulting from an overheated ocean market, and some of those charter deals are still in place despite a widespread demand slowdown.

The 123,000-square-foot warehouse will also serve as a forward staging area for the carrier’s South Carolina-based flight operations that link the southeast US to Germany, China and South Korea.

Weak demand from key regions in an air freight industry awash with excess capacity is forcing forwarders with block space agreements to fend off aggressive pricing policies by rivals.

There is little demand to be seen in air cargo routes out of Asia, but the aggressive expansion of Maersk Air Cargo connections to the US and Europe points to strong interest from the carrier’s existing customers.

The air and ocean shipping sectors have set out their decarbonization agendas, but policy help is urgently required to underpin investment in new fuel technology and production, a global trade group says.

The airline industry has performed better than expected so far this year, with the International Air Transport Association providing a surprisingly sunny financial outlook for an industry with a forecasted profit margin of just 1.2%.

There are few signs of improvement in demand for air freight on major trade lanes out of Asia, while a steady increase in below-deck belly capacity is adding to the downward pressure on rate levels.

International air express carrier DHL is building out its US footprint to gain greater density and reach in its largest market, its CEO for the Americas says.

There are concerns that the latest requirement could force the price of sustainable aviation fuel higher, which would be felt in the pockets of airline passengers and cargo shippers.

Maersk’s growing air cargo capacity is being used to plug gaps in connectivity in the carrier’s integrated end-to-end logistics offering.

The 10-year partnership between Air France-KLM and CMA CGM will dramatically expand the available air cargo capacity and global network of the France-based fleet.