Air Oct 14, 2026 · 8 min read

Air cargo after Golden Week: a pause, not a turn

Air rates dipped 2.1% over Golden Week. The peak is still on, but not to Europe. The Baltic Air Freight Index, by TAC Index, fell 2.1% last week over Golden Week. It is still 24.3% above a year ago. Our view: this is a holiday pause, not a turn. TAC called the dip “not unusual” for the holiday and said the market remains “pretty firm”. WorldACD puts September rates 25% higher year on year. But China–Europe is weak at $3.58/kg (Freightos), hit by the end of EU de minimis. Our call: through November, transpacific stays tight and China–Europe stays below $4/kg.

Golden Week knocked 2.1% off air rates. The peak is still coming, but it is heading to the US, not Europe.
Air freight rates slipped last week. The Baltic Air Freight Index, compiled by TAC Index, fell 2.1% week on week over China’s Golden Week holiday, Air Cargo News reported on 13 October. Even after the dip, the index is 24.3% higher than a year ago.
Our view is simple. This is a holiday pause, not a turn in the market. But “the air market” is no longer one market. Two big flows are moving in opposite directions. Tech and data-centre freight to the US is strong and still looking for space. E-commerce parcels to Europe have fallen sharply since the EU changed its rules. Forwarders who price both lanes the same way this quarter will either leave money on the table or lose the booking.

Why the dip doesn’t worry us

Golden Week is China’s national holiday in the first week of October. Many factories shut, so fewer goods are ready to fly. A short drop in Shanghai rates is normal.
TAC Index said as much. Air Cargo News reported that the fall “was not unusual for the Golden Week holiday period in China when factories often shut down and volumes decrease”. TAC went further on the outlook: “Sources suggested the market remained pretty firm as it enters the traditional peak season.”
Other origins did not follow Shanghai down. According to Air Cargo News, rates rose from Taiwan, from Japan to Europe, from Seoul to the US and from Bangkok. Vietnam to Europe fell. India was slightly lower on the week but much higher than a year ago.
WorldACD, which tracks actual bookings and rates across the market, saw the same pattern in its week-40 report, published 12 October. Worldwide tonnage fell 2% week on week, mainly from Asia Pacific, which it put down to public holidays in China and east Asia. Yet spot and full-market rates both rose 1% that week. Year on year, WorldACD had spot rates up 32% and full-market rates up 26%. “Full-market” means all rates paid, including contract deals, not just one-off spot bookings.
A holiday that cuts tonnage but leaves rates rising is not a weak market.

The year-on-year numbers are big, and fuel is part of it

Every major tracker shows air cargo far above last year.

TAC’s Baltic index: up 24.3% year on year, per Air Cargo News.

WorldACD: September average worldwide rates up 25% year on year, close to the 24% rises in July and August. For January to September, rates are up 22% and tonnage up 5%.

Freightos: its Air Index global benchmark is “up 33% year on year”, according to its 13 October update. Freightos also says the benchmark is 29% above its level before the Strait of Hormuz closure.

Some of that is plain cost. Air Cargo News, citing IATA’s Jet Fuel Price Monitor, reports fuel up 3.1% in the week to 9 October and up 112% year on year. IATA’s own August market release, published 29 September, had jet fuel 79.2% higher than a year earlier. Either way, carriers are passing a large fuel bill on through surcharges and base rates. Air Cargo News lists higher jet fuel prices first among the reasons the Baltic index is up 24.3%.
But fuel is not the whole story. Demand is real too. WorldACD says worldwide tonnage in September was up 3% on August and 9% on a year earlier, after a weak August. It called the market “robust and resilient”. IATA’s August data had global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometres (tonnes flown multiplied by distance), up 4.4% year on year while capacity was down 0.1%. When demand grows and capacity doesn’t, load factors rise and so do prices. IATA’s global load factor reached 46.0%, up 2.0 points.

Two lanes, two markets

Here is where it gets interesting for anyone quoting this week.
The transpacific is hot. WorldACD says China–US tonnage grew 17% year on year in September. Average China–US spot rates were $6.05/kg, up 30%. IATA’s August data had Asia–North America traffic up 13.2%, the fastest of any major lane it lists. Freightos says its China–North America index rose 3% last week, and Southeast Asia–North America rates are 40% higher than last year.
What is driving it? Air Cargo News, reporting TAC, points to strong transpacific demand from the data-centre and semiconductor sectors. And some of the biggest buyers have not booked yet. E-commerce and other large shippers have locked in peak capacity, the report says, but “some others, including AI ‘hyperscalers’, were yet to secure space.” Hyperscalers are the giant cloud companies building data centres. They move servers and chips that are expensive and urgent, so they will pay for air.
China–Europe is the opposite. Freightos says China–Europe prices “dipped to $3.58/kg last week, down 9% compared to a year ago”. Its China–North Europe index fell 7% on the week. WorldACD says China–Europe tonnage fell 10% year on year in September. That is better than the 14% and 15% falls in July and August, but still a fall.
The cause is policy. Since 1 July, the EU no longer gives a de minimis exemption, meaning low-value parcels no longer enter duty-free. WorldACD links the drop in e-commerce volumes to Europe to that change. The hit is concentrated in Hong Kong, the main e-commerce air gateway. WorldACD says Hong Kong–Europe tonnage was down 24% year on year in September, while mainland China–Europe was down only 2%.
Capacity is following the money. Freightos describes “air cargo freighter capacity shifting away from Asia – Europe trades as e-commerce volumes slump”, with freighters moving toward faster-growing lanes such as the transpacific.
There is one wrinkle in the Europe numbers. WorldACD has China–Europe full-market rates at $4.53/kg in September, up 9% year on year. Freightos has spot at $3.58/kg, down 9%. The two measure different things: WorldACD’s full-market figure includes contract rates agreed earlier, while Freightos tracks spot. Read together, they say spot is now falling below what many shippers are paying on contract. That gap is where renegotiation starts.

The Gulf is the tightest corner

The Middle East and South Asia, which WorldACD groups as MESA, is the other pressure point. WorldACD says: “Average rates from MESA origins (+52%, YoY) remain the most highly inflated in percentage terms”. It also puts capacity to and from the Gulf about 17% below week 7, in mid-February, before the US–Iran conflict began.
That was before this week’s attacks. Freightos reports that Houthi missile attacks on Riyadh airport have shut operations there, and some foreign carriers have suspended services. Freightos notes that Saudi Arabia “is not a major transhipment hub”, unlike some other Gulf states, so the knock-on effect may stay limited. But forwarders routing via the Gulf are working with less space and more risk than at any time this year.

What last time tells us, and what’s different

Seasonal dips have misled people before. In late 2024, peak season arrived but never exploded. FreightWaves quoted one industry executive in November that year: “The peak season is passing, more or less, with no big bang”. Rates were still up 20% year on year.
This summer, the expectation was weaker still. In August, Air Cargo Week reported that Xeneta expected “a weaker second half of 2026, with little evidence of a traditional peak season emerging.” Xeneta’s Niall van de Wouw said: “In all the conversations we’ve had with our shipper community, in only one was there talk of peak seasons charters.”
So far, the second half has been firmer than that. September rates held 25% above last year, and TAC says the market is “pretty firm” entering peak. Our reading is that both views are partly right. The traditional e-commerce peak, built on parcels to Europe, is not happening. A different peak, built on tech freight to the US, is.
On the ocean side, Freightos’s Judah Levine cited a National Retail Federation forecast of an 11% month-on-month drop in US November import arrivals, “suggesting that peak season is finally coming to an end”. That is about container imports, not air. Air peaks often run later than ocean, because shippers fly what misses the boat.

What forwarders should do now

Transpacific: book now. If your customers ship electronics, servers or chips to the US, secure November and December space this month. When hyperscalers start booking, they will outbid general cargo.

China–Europe: negotiate. Spot is below many contract rates. Push for lower rates, shorter commitments or index-linked pricing on Q4 and early 2027 deals.

Watch fuel surcharges. With jet fuel up 112% year on year, check how each carrier calculates its fuel surcharge and how often it resets. That line can move more than the base rate.

Plan around the Gulf. Gulf capacity was already about 17% down before the Riyadh closure. Have a non-Gulf routing ready for Middle East and South Asia freight, and warn customers about transit times.

Expect more freighters on the Pacific. As capacity leaves Asia–Europe, Europe-bound shippers may find more options, while US-bound shippers compete for space.

Our prediction

We expect the Golden Week dip to be erased within three weeks, with Shanghai outbound rates back above their pre-holiday level by early November as factories catch up and tech shipments ramp.
By the end of November, we expect the Baltic Air Freight Index to still be at least 15% above its year-ago level, carried by the transpacific and fuel costs. Over the same period, we expect Freightos China–Europe spot to stay below $4/kg, as long as the EU de minimis change keeps e-commerce volumes down. The gap between the two lanes is the trade to watch this quarter.

Sources