Global air cargo volumes grew +4% year-on-year in April but with today’s removal of the de minimis threshold for shipments from China into the United States expected to dramatically disrupt e-commerce volumes in the coming weeks and massive uncertainty hanging over the macroeconomic outlook, the question for the air cargo market in 2025 has become ‘how bad will it be?’, according to industry analysts Xeneta.
Global air cargo volumes grew +4% year-on-year in April but with the removal of the de minimis threshold for shipments from China into the United States expected to dramatically disrupt e-commerce volumes in the coming weeks and massive uncertainty hanging over the macroeconomic outlook, the question for the air cargo market in 2025 has become ‘how bad will it be?’, according to industry analysts Xeneta.
Over the past 10 years, US consumers have paid no duty on shipments valued at $800 or less, causing the volume of cross-border packages into the US to soar to some 1.35bn annually. Similar (but lower) exemptions exist in other countries. From today (May 2), however, low-value products sourced from China and Hong Kong into the US will now be subject to 145% new tariffs, with products sourced from postal services paying a different 120% duty on the value of the goods or a $100 flat fee, rising to $200 on June 1.
Approximately 50% of air cargo shipments on the China–US route is e-commerce, accounting for around 6% of global volumes. A sharp drop in demand is likely to challenge carriers’ capacity planning, with early signs already pointing to freighter flight cancellations and potential redeployments to other trade lanes.
One of China’s e-commerce behemoths, Temu, has already responded by dramatically reducing its advertising spend in the US, but the outlook for global air cargo – so dependent on e-commerce income for the last 2-3 years since covid – extends far beyond the US border, says Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s Chief Airfreight Officer. Download the April Economics Briefing here.
