Trans-pacific air freight capacity recovers, still below year-ago

Air Freight (Photo: Shutterstock / Phaata)

Widebody freighter capacity on the trans-Pacific trade lane continued to recover last week, but has yet to reach year-ago levels.

In the past 24 hours, widebody capacity between Asia-Pacific and North America increased by 18% week-on-week, according to data and consultancy Rotate, the equivalent of 10 widebody cargo flights.

The previous week, carriers were quick to pull capacity out of the market due to a sharp drop in demand stemming from the US ending its “de minimis” tariff exemption for e-commerce shipments from China. This comes after the US imposed a 145% tariff on all other imports in April.

At one point early last week, trans-Pacific air freight capacity was down by as many as 40 flights per day compared to the April average – a drop of about 4,000 tonnes per day, or 40% of previously deployed capacity.

After talks over the weekend between the US and China, tariffs on “de minimis” shipments via the postal network – mainly e-commerce packages – will be reduced from 120% to 54% (or a flat fee of $100). For “de minimis” shipments that are not via the postal network, the tariff will be 30%.

At the same time, the US reduced its overall tariff from 145% to 30%, and China also adjusted its tariff to 10%.

Since then, capacity on the Asia-Pacific-North America route has begun to recover, although it has not yet caught up to the same period last year.

Specifically, according to Rotate data, widebody capacity on the route on Thursday 15 May was 10% lower than it was in 2024 – the equivalent of about 10 cargo flights.

If you add in capacity from widebody passenger flights (with cargo carried under the belly of the aircraft), the gap narrows slightly to about 7%.

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Source: Phaata.com (According to Aircargo News)

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