Saturday, November 7, 2026
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Air Nov 7, 2026 · 7 min read

Xeneta: air demand up 6%, no peak surge

Busy planes, flat prices: why air cargo’s $3.11 a kilo is a ceiling, not a launch pad

Air cargo demand rose 6% year on year in October. Capacity did not grow at all. The global average spot rate, the price paid for one-off shipments rather than contract cargo, was $3.11 per kilo, 29% higher than a year earlier. Those are Xeneta’s October figures, reported by Air Cargo News on 6 November. It is the seventh month of demand growth in a row.

On paper that sounds like a market about to boil over. More cargo, the same number of planes, the busiest quarter of the year. It isn’t.

Our view: air cargo has reached a high plateau and is staying there. Rates are high because capacity is short, not because demand is surging. The year-end peak that forwarders usually price into November and December is not arriving. Anyone quoting or paying peak premiums this month should ask what is actually behind them.

Four months in a narrow band

Look at Xeneta’s monthly spot rate across the second half of the year. In July it was $3.12/kg, according to Xeneta’s August release. In September it was $3.10/kg, up 2% on August, according to its October release reported by AJOT. That puts August at roughly $3.04/kg. In October it was $3.11/kg. That is a range of about eight cents over four months that include the start of peak season.

The year-on-year gap has also levelled off. Xeneta’s August release said the spot rate was up 41% at its May peak, 38% in June and 28% in July. September came in at 27%. October was 29%. The comparison with 2025 is still large, but it is no longer moving much.

Planes are a little fuller. Xeneta’s load factor, its measure of how much of the available space is being used, was 63% in October, up two points, Air Cargo News reported. In September it was 62%. A one-point move from one month to the next is not the jump you would expect if shippers were scrambling for space before Christmas.

Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, put it directly: “Market conditions showed few signs of a sudden increase in capacity pressure.”

He has said this for months. In August he said: “Very few people are talking about peak season.” He added that only one conversation in Xeneta’s shipper community had raised peak season charters. In September, as reported by AJOT, he said Xeneta was not picking up signals of a strong peak season from shippers and forwarders.

Why rates are high anyway

If demand is not surging, why is the spot rate 29% above last year? The answer is the supply side.

The escalation in the Middle East on 28 February removed about 12% of global air cargo capacity overnight, according to Xeneta’s mid-year outlook, published on 17 July. Global supply grew only 1% in the first half of 2026. Air Cargo News, reporting the October data, said direct freighter capacity between Asia and Europe “fell again in October, on top of the capacity lost on routings via the Middle East.”

The ocean side matters too. Air Cargo News wrote that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in February led ocean carriers to shelve their planned return to the Suez Canal. Some cargo that would have gone by sea went by air for reliability.

So the price is held up by missing planes and unreliable ships. Van de Wouw was clear about what happens when that changes: “If the Middle East situation recovers, there will be a rebalancing of demand and supply, and rates will then become lower.”

He also warned against treating the disruption as a one-off: “We can’t call these ‘Black Swan’ events anymore because they are too frequent.” A black swan is a rare, unforeseeable shock. His point is that shocks are now routine, so shippers and forwarders should plan for them rather than be surprised.

The growth is on one lane

The 6% global figure hides a split market.

Asia Pacific to North America volumes rose 15% in October. Air Cargo News, reporting Xeneta’s data, wrote: “The transpacific has been this year’s growth leader as AI-related shipments continue to fill aircraft.” That means servers, chips and data-centre hardware. These are high-value, time-sensitive goods, and they keep the transpacific busy whatever the season.

Rates on that lane rose, but modestly. Southeast Asia to North America spot rates rose 3% month on month to $6.34/kg. Northeast Asia to North America rose 4% to $6.21/kg.

Asia to Europe looks very different. E-commerce volumes on that trade fell 61% year on year in the third quarter. Xeneta links that to the European Union’s €3 charge on packages, which took effect on 1 July. Air Cargo News also reported that exports from China to Europe fell 29%, partly because of a tripling of exports to Russia, according to Xeneta. The article does not say which period or mode that figure covers. Spot rates still edged up, with Northeast Asia to Europe up 4% to $4.97/kg and Southeast Asia to Europe up 3% to $4.35/kg. In our view, that is because capacity is falling faster than cargo.

The biggest move was on the transatlantic. Europe to North America spot rates rose 10% month on month to $2.31/kg, the largest increase of any major lane. Airlines had shifted to their winter schedules. Xeneta said: “Tighter capacity on this corridor is consequently pushing up airline rates being quoted to forwarders in recent tenders.”

Our read: that 10% is a one-time step from the schedule change, not the start of a trend. Xeneta tied the rise to tighter capacity, not stronger demand.

What forwarders should do now

First, challenge peak pricing that has no volume behind it. Xeneta’s data show a market that is full but steady. A peak season surcharge on a lane where volumes are flat is margin for the airline, not a reflection of scarce space. Ask for the lane-level logic.

Second, keep contracts short and floating. In September van de Wouw said: “A one-year fixed rate deal doesn’t fit the current conditions.” He also said: “A one-year deal without any adjustment mechanism is becoming more the exception than the rule.” For forwarders, that means buy rates linked to an index or reviewed every quarter, so you are not locked in at today’s levels if the Middle East settles and rates fall.

Third, treat the transatlantic tender market with care. Tighter winter capacity has given airlines leverage on Europe to North America right now. That leverage lasts only as long as the winter schedule does. Avoid committing to those levels beyond the end of March, when summer schedules return.

Fourth, plan for cargo to move back to the sea. Xeneta expects cargo that switched to air for reliability to return to ocean “once schedule reliability shows a sustained recovery, most likely from the second quarter of 2027.” Air Cargo News also reported that Suez Canal transits by shipping lines continue to recover. When that happens, Asia to Europe air demand loses a support. Forwarders with air-heavy Asia to Europe books should start pricing sea-air and ocean options for customers now, before the shift.

Fifth, don’t bet on the transpacific falling. AI hardware is not seasonal and not very price-sensitive. That lane is the one place where demand, not missing capacity, is doing the work.

Where this goes next

Xeneta’s own outlook points down. “Next year, Xeneta’s baseline is for airfreight rates to decline overall,” Air Cargo News reported, with rates driven more by how much capacity is available than by demand. In July van de Wouw said the fundamentals “look set to tilt back in the shipper’s favor,” but added: “we have been here before, so take nothing for granted.”

Last time is a useful guide. In August Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer said: “Rates are swinging backwards, and we expect that to continue.” Instead, rates stopped falling and held between about $3.04 and $3.11/kg from August to October. Airlines have been slow to give back what they gained. Van de Wouw said in August that they would resist cutting rates as fast as they raised them. We expect the same in the coming weeks: a slow drift lower on the weaker lanes, not a sudden drop.

Our prediction: through the end of November, outbound rates from London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Chicago fall week on week in more weekly prints of the Baltic Air Freight Index (the Baltic Exchange’s weekly air freight benchmark) 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. The split tells the story. Asian exports, carried by AI cargo and short capacity, stay expensive. European and US exports, with no peak behind them, keep easing once the winter-schedule bump has passed.

Sources

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