Thursday, November 12, 2026
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Air Nov 12, 2026 · 7 min read

Taipei air cargo backlog after Typhoon Champi

Tracker Air cargo rates · 3.93 USD/kg

Taoyuan has the aircraft back. It does not have the people and dollies to match

More than 207 freighter flights were cancelled at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE) after Typhoon Champi, according to forwarder Expeditors. Air Cargo News reported the figure on 11 November, nearly three weeks after the storm. Champi hit Taiwan on 22 and 23 October with winds of about 185 mph, the outlet said. Freighter operations were suspended from 23 to 25 October. Expeditors now expects freighter delays to run through the fourth quarter.

That is the headline number. But it is not the real story.

What we think is going on

Our view is simple. The typhoon was the trigger. The airport’s ground capacity is the problem.

A storm on its own causes a few days of chaos and then a catch-up. Airlines add flights, handlers work overtime, and within a week or two things look normal. That has not happened at TPE, and we think the reason is that the airport had no slack to begin with.

Before Champi arrived, handlers at TPE were already dealing with an extra 80–90 freighter flights a month, according to Air Cargo News. That extra traffic carries AI servers, semiconductor equipment and server parts. It sits on top of regular freighter and passenger-belly flights. So when three days of freighter flying vanished, the cargo did not disappear. It piled up, and it now has to move through the same warehouses, the same ramp and the same crews that were already running hot.

You can re-fly a cancelled flight. You cannot quickly hire and train ramp staff, or conjure up more dollies. A dolly is the flatbed trailer that moves pallets and containers between the warehouse and the aircraft. Air Cargo News reports “dolly (flatbed trailer) and manpower constraints” at TPE. When those run short, aircraft wait, build-up slows and acceptance cut-offs move earlier. That is a capacity cut, even if every freighter is back on schedule.

The evidence

Start with the size of the hit. On the morning of Friday 23 October alone, 596 flights at Taoyuan were cancelled between midnight and 9 a.m., including 75 cargo flights, according to Taoyuan International Airport Corp. as reported by Focus Taiwan. Expeditors’ later estimate of more than 207 freighter cancellations created what it called a “substantial import backlog”.

Then look at what the forwarders on the ground are saying. Expeditors warned: “Further freighter cancellations remain possible while terminals clear the backlog.” It added that “China Airlines freighter services have experienced the most disruption, including cancellations and delays”. Seko Logistics said: “Increased cargo volumes at TPE are placing pressure on ground handling resources”.

Seko’s own client advisory, dated 4 November, is more pointed. It said China Airlines, EVA Air and STARLUX Airlines had warned that rising import volumes were straining manpower, cargo dollies and handling capacity. It said selected China Airlines flights had been cancelled, including US-bound freighter services. And it said: “The airlines have not provided a recovery timeline.” That advisory came 12 days after the storm. In our view, twelve days is long enough for a pure weather backlog to clear. This one had not.

The pressure was building before Champi. In September, Dimerco’s Asia Pacific freight report, as covered by SDCExec, said: “Taiwan air capacity is tight across all major trade lanes as AI servers, high-performance computing equipment and advanced semiconductors absorb available space.” Dimerco’s Kathy Liu summed it up: “AI out of Taiwan fills aircraft while everything else drifts”. The same report told shippers to “Expect rates to continue rising on Taiwan-U.S. routes ahead of the fourth-quarter peak”.

What it is doing to price

Rates have done what Dimerco said they would. WorldACD Market Data for week 43 (19–25 October), the week Champi struck, put transpacific spot rates from Asia Pacific to the US at “an average of $7.43 per kilo”, up 7% on the week, STAT Times reported. That average was up 41% on a year earlier. In the same week, capacity out of Asia Pacific fell 1%, which STAT Times said was “largely driven by a typhoon that severely disrupted flight schedules in Taiwan.” It linked the rate rise to “exceptionally strong and sustained demand within the US for AI-related high-tech air imports”.

The following week, the picture held. In the seven days to 2 November, the TAC Index reported that global rates slipped 1.1% week on week but were still 22.8% above a year earlier. Against that softer global backdrop, STAT Times reported that rates on transpacific routes to the US kept rising strongly and that rates from Taiwan posted further weekly gains. No Taiwan-specific dollar figure was published in either report.

Put plainly: global air freight is cooling at the edges, but the lane out of Taiwan to the US is not. A backlog on the ground at TPE makes that worse, because every flight that leaves late or leaves light is capacity the market does not get back.

Why the AI freight will not wait

It helps to be clear about why this cargo flies at all. AI servers and chip-making tools are high in value and low in weight for what they are worth. A late server rack can hold up a data centre build. That makes shippers willing to pay almost any air rate rather than switch to ocean.

The volumes show it. WorldACD’s week 43 data showed chargeable weight from Asia Pacific to the US up 9% year on year, even as Asia Pacific to Europe fell 16%, STAT Times reported. Chargeable weight is the weight airlines bill on, whichever is greater of actual weight or volume. Taiwan’s factories were busy over the summer, too. Dimerco’s September report put Taiwan’s manufacturing PMI, a monthly survey of factory activity where anything above 50 means growth, at 55.1, the highest in the region.

Our view: this is demand that queues rather than disappears. When a typhoon knocks out three days of freighter flying, AI cargo does not cancel. It waits at the warehouse and then competes for the next lift. That is why a short storm has turned into a long backlog, and why everything that is not AI hardware should expect to sit at the back of the line.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

Here is our read on the practical effects.

Exports out of TPE will take longer to accept and build. Expeditors warns of longer handling and acceptance lead times, and Seko of longer export processing times. In practice, that means earlier cut-offs and a higher chance of cargo missing its planned flight. Build a day or more of buffer into promised delivery dates for anything that is not AI hardware riding on a charter.

Imports into TPE will take longer to break down and release. That matters more than it sounds. In our view, a good share of what flies into Taiwan feeds its chip and server plants. A slow release at the airport becomes a slow ramp-up at the factory, and then a slower export flow out the other end.

General cargo will lose out first. When space is tight and ramp time is scarce, airlines and handlers favour the high-yield, high-priority freight. Today that is AI servers. Our view is that lower-value electronics, consumer goods and spare parts will be the cargo that gets rolled to the next flight.

Space on paper is not space flown. A block space agreement, or BSA, is a contract for set capacity on set flights. If the flight is cancelled, the space goes with it. Forwarders should check what their BSAs and allotments say about carrier cancellations and re-protection, meaning moving cargo to another flight. Seko’s own wording is a useful reminder: “Space availability and actual uplift remain subject to airline confirmation and prevailing operating conditions.”

Routing options are worth pricing now, not later. In our view, forwarders should be quoting alternatives for non-urgent freight: other Taiwanese departure points, or sea-air routings through hubs with more ramp capacity. None of these is free, and some will be full of the same AI freight. South Korea is a warning: in September Dimerco said Asia-US load factors there, meaning the share of available space actually filled, were “running near 90%”. But a quote held in reserve is better than one scrambled together after a rollover.

Forecasts buy priority. Both Expeditors and Seko recommend that customers share forecasts, book space early and flag sensitive cargo as soon as possible. That is standard advice. In a market this tight, it is also the main lever a shipper has.

Our call

We think the TPE backlog outlasts the official explanation. The typhoon gave the airport a three-day hole. AI-driven freighter traffic means it has had no spare hours to fill it.

Our prediction: handling delays and ad-hoc freighter cancellations at Taoyuan continue into January 2027, beyond Expeditors’ fourth-quarter window. On price, we expect WorldACD’s average Asia Pacific–US spot rate to stay above $7 per kilo through week 50 (7–13 December). If it drops below that level before then, it will mean either AI freight has cooled or TPE’s ramp has caught up faster than we think. We do not expect either.

Sources

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