International air cargo is highly reliant on global supply chains and cross border e-commerce traffic. Both look like they will take a beating in 2025. In January we were still expecting growth of between 3.5% and 7.4% but our latest forecast foresees a range of between -0.1% and +0.7%. This is driven a weaker economic outlook globally as well the potential loss of about one third of transpacific air cargo volumes due to US de-minimis rule changes. There is more downside risk than upside potential to this forecast.
International Airfreight History and Forecast
Overall international air cargo traffic (measured in airport tonnes handled) has grown by about 2.5% per year for the last 20 years. Since 2019 growth has been more volatile than in the 14 years through to 2018 which saw average growth of 3.6%. 2022 and 2023 saw declines of 6.4% and 3.4% respectively. 2024 was a good year in terms of growth with international traffic growing by 12.3%. 2022 and 2023 declines would have been much larger and 2024 growth much lower without strong cross border e-commerce traffic growth.
For 2025 we now predict growth of between -0.1% and +0.7%. This is significantly lower than the range of +3.5% to +7.5% we were expecting in our January analysis. Our five-year growth expectations have declined from between +2.8% and +5.5% down to between +2.2% and +3.6%. The primary trigger for the downgrade in the forward outlook is US tariff policy and the loss of the de-minimis exemption for Chinese imports starting on 1 May.
Less Trade for All
In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the international monetary fund has significantly downgraded economic and trade expectations for 2025 and also 2026. Forecast economic growth has dropped from around 3.2% to 2.8% in 2025, and the expectation for global imports has dropped from approximately 4% to 2%. The two charts below show the export and import outlook for the worlds top and Asia’s top economies, respectively. It’s not just China that is impacted.
One Big Cross Border E-Commerce Hole
The US is responsible for about 17% of international air cargo volumes. In 2024, 13 million tonnes of international cargo were handled at US airports. That compares to about 15 million in the EU and 12 million for China and Hong Kong combined. By our estimates, cross border e-commerce traffic into the US accounts for about one third of air cargo volumes from Asia – about 100,000 tonnes per month. The remainder consists of general airfreight from China (up to now about 80,000 tonnes per month) and the rest of North and Southeast Asia (about 80,000 tonnes per month).
Our forecast above assumes a one-time negative impact of a loss of 75% of this traffic in 2025 as a consequence of the end of the de-minimis exemption, but growth in line with the overall market thereafter. We do not believe that there will be a significant shift of this volume to other markets, although we note that sofar this year growth to non-US destinations has accelerated. Overall growth in March was close to 60%, while low value and e-commerce shipments value from China to the US grew by 14%.
