Air freight shippers are increasingly reluctant to sign long-term fixed contracts, according to a report carried by Yahoo Finance — a shift that signals broader stress in how cargo capacity is bought and sold between airlines, forwarders and their customers.

The core of the story is a behavioral one: cargo owners who once locked in multi-month or multi-year fixed-rate deals with carriers and freight forwarders are now steering away from those commitments. The reluctance reflects the freight market's recent swings, in which contract terms struck at one point in the cycle have repeatedly proved costly or redundant shortly afterward.

Why are shippers pulling back from fixed deals?

Long-term fixed contracts are designed to give both sides certainty. The shipper secures guaranteed capacity and a known rate; the carrier or forwarder secures predictable volume and revenue. That bargain works well when market conditions move gradually.

Recent years have not moved gradually. The air cargo sector has cycled through pandemic-era capacity shortages and record rates, followed by sharp swings as belly capacity returned and demand patterns shifted. In that environment, a fixed contract can lock a shipper into paying above spot market rates for months — or leave a carrier holding cheap commitments when spot prices spike.

Shippers' weariness, as reported, suggests the balance of risk in these agreements now looks unattractive from the customer side. Buyers appear to prefer shorter commitments or more flexible arrangements that let them react to spot conditions rather than underwrite the market on behalf of their suppliers.

What does this change for carriers and forwarders?

For airlines and freight forwarders, the trend carries direct commercial consequences. Fixed contracts anchor baseload revenue and support capacity planning — particularly on freighter networks, where an operator needs committed volume to justify aircraft utilization. If a growing share of cargo customers refuse those commitments, carriers face a revenue base that becomes more spot-exposed and less predictable.

That exposure cuts both ways. In a falling market, carriers earn less than contract structures would have guaranteed. In a rising market, they capture upside — but without committed volumes, they also carry more risk of flying underutilized freighter capacity.

Forwarders sit in the middle of this tension. Many sell fixed-rate products to shippers while buying capacity from airlines, and a customer base that no longer wants long-term fixed terms compresses the window in which forwarders can safely hedge their own purchases.

Is this a cyclical symptom or a structural shift?

The report frames shipper fatigue as a present-market phenomenon rather than a permanent rejection of contracting. Air cargo contracting practices have historically swung with the cycle: fixed deals dominate when capacity is scarce and shippers fear being shut out, while spot-oriented buying dominates when capacity is plentiful and rates are falling.

The current weariness therefore reads most plausibly as a cyclical signal — cargo customers judging that today's market does not reward long-dated rate commitments. Whether it hardens into a structural change depends on how capacity, demand and rates evolve over the coming quarters, and on whether carriers respond with more flexible contract structures that share market risk between the parties.

What is clear from the report is the direction of travel: the customers who fund the air cargo chain are, for now, choosing optionality over commitment. Carriers and forwarders that depend on contracted baseload volume will need to decide how much pricing flexibility they can offer before the shippers' caution begins to reshape capacity planning and freighter deployment decisions.