Friday, November 6, 2026
The news that moves freight
Air Nov 6, 2026 · 8 min read

Tight air capacity pays: DHL, Emirates and the split in air rates

Owning the plane pays: who is cashing in on tight air capacity, and where it is ending

DHL Express earned about €100m extra in the third quarter of 2026 because there was not enough air freight capacity to go round. DHL Group put that figure in its results on 5 November. It said Express earnings included a positive effect of around €100m from “temporary capacity constraints in the international air freight market.” Express operating profit (EBIT, earnings before interest and tax) rose 50% to €1,038m on revenue up 19.2% to €6,995m. Its margin jumped from 11.8% to 14.8%.

Our view is simple. In air cargo this year, the profit is coming from a shortage of space, not from a surge in freight. The companies that control aircraft capacity are taking the biggest share. Forwarders are doing well too, but they are renting space in a market where the landlord has the upper hand. And the shortage is starting to break apart by region, which changes how forwarders should price the next six weeks.

The proof: revenue running far ahead of tonnes

The clearest case is Emirates SkyCargo. Air Cargo News reported Emirates’ first-half results for April to September on 5 November. SkyCargo carried 1.24m tonnes, down 1% from 1.25m a year earlier, Air Cargo News reported. Cargo revenue still rose about 50%. Air Cargo News gives 50% in its summary and 52% in the body of the article. Emirates did not publish the cash figure.

Flat tonnage and revenue up by half means the gain came almost entirely from price. Emirates said the regional conflict had reduced available air freight capacity, and that disruption at sea had pushed shippers towards air. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and Group, said: “Customer demand held firm and our cargo operations made a strong contribution, keeping revenue and cash levels healthy”.

The rest of Emirates did badly. Group revenue fell 12% to AED66.2bn ($18bn)andgroupprofitbeforetaxfell66%toAED4.1bn($1.1bn). Passenger flying was hit hard by the conflict, Air Cargo News reported. Sheikh Ahmed said cargo kept revenue and cash healthy “even as global jet fuel prices doubled against the same period last year, impacting our costs and profitability.” Cargo was the part of the business that held up, because cargo is the part where buyers had nowhere else to go.

DHL’s own forwarding division tells the same story from the forwarder’s side. DHL Global Forwarding, Freight grew revenue 23.4% to €5,644m and EBIT 32.7% to €259m. Its margin rose from 4.3% to 4.6%. Air Cargo News reported that the forwarding arm moved 497,000 tonnes of air freight in the quarter, up 12%. Air revenue rose 30.4% to €1.5bn. Air gross profit, what is left after paying the airline, rose 28.4% to €321m.

So volume grew 12%, but revenue grew 30%. Most of the gap is higher rates passed straight through to customers. Gross profit grew a little slower than revenue, so DHL’s forwarders kept roughly the same percentage cut, about a fifth of air revenue, rather than widening it. DHL said air volumes grew “particularly strongly on trade lanes originating in Asia.”

The industry-wide data matches. IATA said on 29 October that global air cargo demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometres, rose 7.7% in September from a year earlier. Capacity rose only 2.7%. When demand grows almost three times faster than supply, prices rise. IATA also said jet fuel was 103.4% more expensive than a year earlier, which is another reason airlines are charging more.

Kuehne+Nagel, the other giant air forwarder, showed the same pattern in October. Its Air Logistics unit grew EBIT 84% to CHF169m in the third quarter, STAT Times reported on 22 October. Net turnover rose 38% to about CHF2.4bn. The report put Kuehne+Nagel’s volume growth at 10% in the quarter, up from 3% in the second, and credited demand from cloud infrastructure and semiconductor customers.

Integrators are coming for heavy freight

The DHL figures carry a warning for independent forwarders. DHL Express is an integrator: it runs its own aircraft and handles a parcel from pickup to delivery. It is now chasing heavier industrial shipments that forwarders have traditionally moved on airline space.

DHL said Express “significantly increased transported weight,” helped by an offer for time-critical heavy shipments for industrial customers. Air Cargo News reported that daily shipment weight in Time Definite International, DHL’s main international express product, rose 9.7% year on year. It also reported that Express “picked up additional business because of airfreight capacity constraints.”

That makes sense. When airline space is scarce, a shipper who needs a 200kg pallet moved by Friday will pay a premium to someone who can guarantee the lift. An integrator with its own fleet can make that promise. A forwarder waiting on an airline’s allocation often cannot.

CEO Tobias Meyer said DHL wants to keep that advantage: “We remain focused on providing our customers with high service quality and sufficient capacity.” The group raised its 2026 EBIT guidance to more than €7.0bn, from more than €6.5bn, and its free cash flow forecast (excluding acquisitions) to more than €3.2bn, from about €3.0bn. Meyer said strong performance “enabled us to raise our full-year earnings guidance for the second time this year.” CFO Melanie Kreis added: “Our continued strong earnings and cash flow generation enable us to invest selectively in further growth.”

Note DHL’s own word, though: “temporary.” DHL is telling investors not to count on that €100m every quarter.

The squeeze is splitting by origin

That word matters, because the rate data is already moving. The Baltic Air Freight Index global measure (BAI00) fell 1.1% in the week to 2 November, though rates were still 22.8% above a year earlier on TAC Index data, STAT Times reported. Underneath, the Baltic Air Freight Index (BAI) lanes went in very different directions:

  • Shanghai outbound (BAI80): up 2.8% on the week, up 14.4% on the year
  • Hong Kong outbound (BAI30): up 0.7% on the week, up 28% on the year
  • Frankfurt outbound (BAI20): down 6.5% on the week, up 25.7% on the year
  • Chicago outbound (BAI50): down 4.2% on the week, up 17.9% on the year
  • London Heathrow outbound (BAI40): down 23.2% on the week, up 34.4% on the year

India showed year-on-year gains of around 80%, the report said.

One week does not make a trend, and Heathrow’s index can swing hard. But the direction is clear. Asia exports, where peak-season e-commerce and tech freight sit, are still firming. Exports from Europe and the US, where peak demand is weaker, are falling. Tight capacity was a global story for most of the year. It is becoming an Asia-outbound story.

The Middle East is a special case. IATA said Middle East carriers’ demand rose only 3.8% in September, the weakest of any region, while their capacity grew 7.0%. Europe–Middle East traffic fell 18.0% and Middle East–Asia fell 10.2%. So some Gulf corridors are not short of space at all. They are short of customers. Emirates’ revenue jump reflects pricing on the flows that still run, not a region-wide shortage.

What forwarders should do now

First, keep Asia peak surcharges. Shanghai and Hong Kong rates are still rising, and IATA’s supply and demand figures do not point to a sudden flood of space. Forwarders who cut Asia export quotes now are giving away margin the market is still paying.

Second, expect pushback on Europe and US export quotes. Shippers can read the same indices. A forwarder still charging October rates out of Frankfurt or Heathrow in late November will lose the booking. Re-quote these lanes weekly, not monthly.

Third, watch the integrators. If DHL Express is winning heavy industrial freight because it can promise lift, your own customers are hearing that pitch. The answer is not to match on price. It is to lock in space: block space agreements (BSAs, a fixed amount of space bought on set flights for a set period) or charter shares for peak, so you can make the same promise.

Fourth, check fuel clauses. With jet fuel roughly double last year’s price, according to IATA, airlines will keep fuel surcharges high even where base rates fall. Make sure contracts pass those changes through in both directions.

Fifth, route through the Gulf with care. Emirates is pricing hard on the capacity it has. Where Gulf hubs are expensive and demand on Middle East corridors is weak, direct services or other hubs may now be cheaper for Asia–Europe air.

Our call

We think the windfall from scarcity is close to its peak and will shrink first outside Asia. Our specific prediction: through the end of November, outbound rates from London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Chicago fall week on week in more weekly BAI prints than they rise. Shanghai and Hong Kong outbound stay at least 10% above year-ago levels in every weekly print until peak season ends in mid-December.

We also expect DHL’s fourth-quarter Express result, due in early 2027, to show a smaller benefit from capacity constraints than the €100m booked in the third quarter. If Asia rates hold and Europe rates fall as we expect, that is the most likely result. If the Gulf conflict cuts more capacity, we will be wrong on both counts, and forwarders without locked-in space will feel it first.

Sources

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