Air Oct 10, 2026 · 8 min read

Amazon adds two China–US air freight services for its sellers

Amazon launches two China–US air services, one with no FBA placement fee. Amazon Global Logistics has added two China–US air options for its sellers, according to Supply Chain Dive. Air SMP flies daily from Shanghai and Hong Kong to fulfilment centres in five US regions in 7–10 days, with no FBA inbound placement fee. Economy Air takes 11–15 days to Los Angeles, at a price below Amazon’s standard air. No rates were published. Our view: the fee waiver matters more than the flights. A forwarder can’t waive a fee Amazon charges. We expect FBA-focused forwarders on China–US air to cut rates to hold sellers by the end of Q1 2027.

Amazon’s new China–US air services come with a fee waiver forwarders can’t match
Amazon has added two China-to-US air freight services to Amazon Global Logistics (AGL), the forwarding business it runs for marketplace sellers. Supply Chain Dive reported the launch on 8 October. The faster service, Air SMP, promises 7–10 days from pickup in Shanghai or Hong Kong to a fulfilment centre in one of five US regions, on daily flights. The cheaper one, Economy Air, takes 11–15 days from Shanghai or Shenzhen to Los Angeles. Amazon did not publish rates for either.
Our view is simple. The planes are not the story. The story is that Amazon is now bundling its own warehouse fees into its freight pricing, and no outside forwarder can do that. For China–US e-commerce forwarders whose customers sell on Amazon, this is a pricing problem that lands in the busiest quarter of the year.

What Amazon launched

Amazon announced both services to sellers in a Seller Central post titled “Ship by air with $0 placement fees and faster transit.”
Air SMP is the air version of Seller Managed Placement (SMP). Under SMP, sellers split their shipment at origin and send it to a fixed fulfilment centre in each of five US regions. Amazon’s own SMP fact sheet says each region has “2-4 injection points,” meaning drop-off locations in its network. Sellers qualify when they ship at least five identical cartons per product from China to the US, according to the same fact sheet.
According to Supply Chain Dive and Amazon’s post, Air SMP comes with three selling points:

Daily flights from Shanghai and Hong Kong.

An estimated 7–10 days from origin pickup.

No FBA inbound placement fee, and no extra surcharge on apparel, electronics or lithium-battery goods.

Economy Air is a slower, cheaper tier. Amazon says it is priced below standard AGL air. Standard AGL air from Hong Kong or Shanghai typically takes seven days, compared with Economy Air’s 11 to 15, according to Supply Chain Dive. The outlet added that Economy Air “still outpaces ocean freight replenishment by weeks, Amazon noted.”
Amazon says the new air options give shippers “faster replenishment, more placement control, and lower costs,” according to Supply Chain Dive. Its own announcement calls both services “ideal for peak season preparation, stockout recovery, or time-sensitive product launches.”

Why the fee waiver matters more than the flights

The inbound placement fee is what Amazon charges FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) sellers for spreading their stock across its US network. Sellers who send stock to fewer locations pay it so Amazon can redistribute the goods. Sellers who split shipments themselves avoid some or all of it.
Amazon’s SMP fact sheet puts it plainly: “Seller Managed Placement has no FBA inbound placement fees, allowing sellers to split their shipment across five regions.”
Now think about how a seller compares quotes. An independent forwarder quotes freight, customs and delivery to the warehouse. The seller then pays Amazon’s placement fee on top. AGL quotes freight to the same warehouse, and the placement fee disappears. A forwarder can cut its margin to match Amazon’s freight rate. It cannot cut a fee that Amazon sets and collects.
This is why we think Air SMP is the more important of the two launches. Economy Air competes on price. Air SMP changes what the seller is comparing.
The surcharge point matters too. Apparel, electronics and lithium-battery goods are a large share of what Chinese sellers ship to the US. Lithium batteries are classed as dangerous goods on aircraft, which usually adds handling cost. Amazon says it adds no surcharge on these categories for Air SMP. We don’t know how that is priced into the base rate, because Amazon has not published one.

What the air market looks like right now

The timing fits the market. C.H. Robinson wrote on 1 October that “Asia Pacific-to-U.S. demand was already running 17% above last year in mid-September, with several technology-heavy origins showing stronger gains.” It says Asia-origin pricing could firm more noticeably from mid-October, as factories reopen after the 1–7 October Golden Week holiday.
Spot prices have eased in the short term, though. The Freightos Air Index showed China–North America rates down more than 15% in a week, to $5.60/kg, in its 6 October update. Xeneta put Northeast Asia–North America spot rates at $6.03/kg for September, up 5% on August, according to Air Cargo News.
E-commerce is a smaller part of this peak than in past years. C.H. Robinson said: “Ecommerce demand is playing a smaller role in this year’s peak season.” The US de minimis exemption, which let shipments worth up to $800 enter duty-free, has been suspended since at least 29 August 2025, according to a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) proposed rule published on 8 October. Xeneta still saw China–US e-commerce exports up 17% year on year in August, though from a lower base, according to Air Cargo News.
There is another pressure pushing freight onto planes. Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer Niall van de Wouw told Air Cargo News: “When ocean becomes this unreliable and this expensive, some volume moves to air.” Amazon is pitching both services at exactly that seller: one who can’t wait for ocean replenishment.

Amazon has been building this all year

This launch is the latest step in a steady build-out. In April, Amazon opened a bulk storage site in Shenzhen for US-bound seller inventory. It claimed “storage costs up to 45% lower than its U.S.-based bulk storage services,” according to Supply Chain Dive. Sunny Jain, Amazon’s worldwide head of FBA, said at the time: “It’s about cash flow, flexibility, and the ability to test new regions without excessive risk.”
In May, Amazon launched Amazon Supply Chain Services, opening its freight, warehousing and parcel services to any business, not just marketplace sellers. Supply Chain Dive listed Amazon Air Cargo at more than 100 aircraft and more than 250 daily flights at the time. Derek Lossing, a former Amazon logistics leader who now runs Cirrus Global Advisors, told the outlet: “if you can truly bundle it all together, it’s powerful, and it’s more powerful than what any individual company offers.”
In September, Amazon added Standard Ocean Express, which routes SMP ocean freight through the Port of Los Angeles with direct rail to its East Coast fulfilment centres, according to Supply Chain Dive.
Put those together and, in our view, the pattern is clear. Store the goods in Shenzhen. Fly or ship them with AGL. Split them at origin with SMP. Skip the placement fee. Each step makes it cheaper to keep the whole move inside Amazon.
The last big China–US e-commerce air boom shows how fast this market can move. In November 2024, FreightWaves reported China–North America spot rates up about 17% in three weeks to nearly $7/kg, with airlines “benefiting from consumers’ embrace of ultra-low products from China on new platforms like Temu and Shein.” Then de minimis went. “Changes in tariff rules for low-value imports reduced some ecommerce flows into the United States,” C.H. Robinson wrote this month. In our view, that leaves stock replenishment for marketplace sellers as one of the steadier e-commerce flows on the lane. That is the freight Amazon is now going after.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

For forwarders in South China and Shanghai whose book is mostly Amazon sellers, expect harder rate conversations through Q4. Sellers will ask why your door-to-warehouse price, plus Amazon’s placement fee, is higher than AGL’s. You need an answer ready.
The answers we think hold up:

Service outside Amazon. AGL moves goods into Amazon’s network. Sellers who also stock Walmart, Shopify stores or their own warehouses still need someone to handle the rest.

Flexibility in peak. Experts quoted by Supply Chain Dive in May said it is unclear how Amazon will split capacity between its own marketplace sellers and customers that only use it for logistics, and that capacity problems could compound ahead of the peak holiday season. A forwarder with secured block space can sell certainty.

Origin coverage. Air SMP covers Shanghai and Hong Kong only. Economy Air covers Shanghai and Shenzhen to Los Angeles only. Sellers in other origins, or bound for other gateways, still need alternatives.

For shippers, the case for testing AGL air is now stronger, especially for SMP-eligible goods. Run a landed-cost comparison that includes the placement fee, not just the freight rate. Watch for capacity limits in November, when every seller wants space at once.
For the China–US air lane, we think Amazon becoming a bigger buyer of space is another reason rates should firm from mid-October, as C.H. Robinson suggests they could.

Our call

We expect Amazon to add at least one more origin to Air SMP by the end of Q1 2027, most likely Shenzhen, which already feeds Economy Air and hosts Amazon’s bulk storage site. Over the same period, we expect FBA-focused forwarders on China–US air to respond mainly with lower rates rather than new services. Margins on that business will be thinner by the spring.

Sources