Air cargo pricing across major benchmarks remains roughly 27% higher year-on-year, even as shipped volumes continue to soften. The split matters because air freight normally tracks demand. When rates diverge upward from falling volumes, supply discipline is doing the work, not buyer appetite.

The 27% premium comes from the standard industry indices that airlines and forwarders (logistics companies that book cargo space on behalf of shippers) use for contract benchmarking. The exact baseline sits in the underlying dataset. The signal points one way: carriers have held pricing power through a softer demand window. Historically, rate and tonnage move together. The current gap is unusual and worth explaining.

What keeps rates elevated when volumes slip?

Three mechanics set short-term airfreight prices: available belly and freighter capacity, jet-fuel cost, and the urgency premium that shippers pay for time-critical cargo.

Capacity tightened as carriers retired older freighters and returned some passenger widebodies to passenger layouts. Belly hold space — the cargo compartment under a passenger jet — expanded as international passenger routes rebuilt, but freighter capacity did not fully recover to the 2021 peak.

Jet fuel sits well above the 2015–2019 average. Fuel surcharges — variable add-ons that shift fuel cost through to shippers — flow directly into spot rates and lift the headline number.

Volumes slipped because manufacturing exports from parts of Asia softened and ocean carriers re-absorbed freight that might otherwise have moved by air. The combination explains the split: tighter supply meeting softer but still-elevated demand.

The picture is uneven across lanes. Trans-Pacific eastbound flows from Asia to North America still command premium yields, while Europe-bound pharma and semiconductor cargo reinforces the average. Outbound Asia-Europe spot rates have softened more visibly, which pulls the global index down at the margin but cannot close a 27-point gap on its own.

What does the rate-volume gap change for shippers?

Forwarders with annual contracts negotiated in 2023 and 2024 face a difficult environment. Spot benchmarks stay high, but their own rates compress as logistics teams push for volume discounts. The 27% premium reflects what the market bears on a single marginal shipment, not what a long-term buyer pays.

For integrated carriers — passenger-plus-cargo operators such as Emirates SkyCargo, Qatar Airways Cargo, Cathay Cargo, or Lufthansa Cargo — yields improve when prices hold while costs normalise. For dedicated freighters like FedEx, UPS, and Cargolux, load factor (the share of available capacity actually filled) matters more than headline rate.

For airlines, the operational question is whether to deploy more freighters or convert parked passenger aircraft back to all-cargo layouts. Conversions run in months, not weeks. Cargo division heads also weigh whether to cut marginal frequencies or raise tender minimums (the floor rate below which a carrier will not accept a booking).

What could break the divergence?

Watch three indicators: weekly tonnage prints from the major indices, the count of long-haul widebodies leaving passenger service for freighter layouts, and throughput at Singapore and Hong Kong hubs, which lead global cycles by roughly four to six weeks.

If volumes keep falling while rates hold, the market enters a yield-defence phase. Carriers raise minimum tender charges, trim frequency, and accept lower load factor in exchange for stable unit revenue. If volumes stabilise, the 27% premium looks increasingly fragile. Either way, contract negotiations in early 2025 will stay tense across the major trades, and shippers should expect renewals to drag longer than in past downcycles.