Air Freight Rates Drop After Lunar New Year

The latest data from TAC Index shows that the total air freight rate has decreased by 8.2% compared to last week and decreased by 21.2% compared to the same period last year.

Air Freight

(Illustration: FreePik)

Air freight rates began to decrease after the Lunar New Year holiday, after increasing in the first six weeks of the year.

The latest data from TAC Index shows that the total air freight rate has decreased by 8.2% compared to last week and decreased by 21.2% compared to the same period last year.

"Despite ongoing disruption to ocean shipping in the Red Sea and congestion leading to the suspension of business in certain locations such as Dubai and Bangkok, the overall decline last week was not surprising as air cargo volumes out of China fell sharply during the Lunar New Year holidays," TAC Index said in its weekly summary.

Freight rates from Hong Kong decreased by 13% compared to last week, while freight rates from Shanghai decreased by 11.5%.

Both have decreased compared to the same period last year, with Hong Kong decreasing by 8.3% and Shanghai decreasing by 5.4% compared to the same period last year.

However, there are also some bright spots. TAC said that freight rates from India are increasing, which may indicate that some shipping companies are using air transport to cope with sea transport issues.

This decrease is not too surprising as demand usually decreases when factories in Asia close for a two-week holiday, starting from February 10 this year.

Air freight rates have been continuously increasing for a long time because this industry has to face high demand before the Lunar New Year holiday and some shipping companies use sea-air combined transport solutions to solve the delay caused by the Red Sea crisis.

However, the air market is expected to decrease after the Lunar New Year holiday.

Recently, Scan Global Logistics said they do not expect the demand of the first weeks of the year to be maintained.

"Our assessment remains that the development in recent weeks more so pertains to a last rush ahead of the Lunar New Year, and not least the effect from Red Sea delays, prompting shippers across Europe and US to utilise airfreight to avoid empty shelves and stock-outs," the company said.

WorldACD analyst experts also predict there will be a slowdown. Their data shows that in the sixth week, the volume of exports from China decreased by 2% compared to the previous week, while the volume of imports decreased by 15%.

This slowdown occurred after the "recent surge" in the volume of exports from China when shipping companies "rushed to get goods shipped before the LNY holiday".