Air Cargo and Express

Air cargo carries a tiny share of world trade by weight and a large share by value: well under 1% of tonnage but roughly a third of the value of goods traded across borders (IATA's commonly cited estimate; verify the current figure). It is the mode for things that are urgent, perishable, valuable or small — semiconductors and AI servers, pharmaceuticals, fresh flowers and seafood, spare parts, fashion, and above all, in 2018–25, e-commerce parcels from China. The industry has two halves with different economics. Integrators — FedEx, UPS and DHL, plus Amazon Air as a private network — sell a door-to-door, time-definite product built on their own aircraft and hubs (Memphis, Louisville, Leipzig, Cincinnati), and earn their money from network density and reliability. General air cargo is a wholesale market: combination airlines sell space in passenger aircraft bellies and freighters, and all-cargo and ACMI operators (Atlas Air, Cargolux, Kalitta) sell freighter capacity, mostly to freight forwarders, at rates that swing violently with the balance of capacity and demand. That swing was most extreme in 2020–21, when grounded passenger fleets removed roughly half of global capacity and rates on the Hong Kong–North America lane rose above ~$10/kg (TAC Index / Baltic Air Freight Index, late 2021, reported; verify peak), handing airlines record cargo revenues. The next shock came from US trade policy: low-value e-commerce was ~55% of China–US air volumes in 2024 (~1.2m tonnes, Aevean, reported), and when the US ended the de minimis exemption for China and Hong Kong on 2 May 2025 (and suspended it for all countries on 29 Aug 2025), transpacific freighter capacity fell by ~40 daily flights at the May 2025 low (Rotate, reported). This section explains capacity (belly vs freighter), the integrators' hub-and-spoke model, ACMI, the e-commerce boom and its end, rates and units, the 2020–21 spike, and the business's exposure to fuel and geopolitics.