Airfreight rates are holding at strong levels as the industry moves into the peak season window, according to Air Cargo News.

The headline reading matters because of when it lands. The weeks leading up to the fourth quarter are the period in which shippers, forwarders and carriers lock in capacity commitments for the busiest stretch of the cargo calendar. Rates that are already firm before the surge begins signal that demand is arriving ahead of the seasonal curve, not simply tracking it.

For carriers, the position is straightforward. Pricing strength at this point in the year flows directly into full-year cargo revenue, and cargo divisions at the major combination operators have spent the post-pandemic period carrying a larger share of group earnings than they did historically. A firm rate environment entering the peak allows them to hold yields rather than discount for volume, and to allocate belly capacity to the highest-paying traffic rather than filling space opportunistically.

For freighter operators and lessors, the same dynamics apply with sharper consequences. Freighter economics are leveraged to spot rates and near-term contract pricing. When rates are strong going into the peak, freighter utilisation tends to rise, conversion and lease enquiries tend to pick up, and the lease rates that lessors can command on passenger-to-freighter converted aircraft tighten. When rates soften before the peak, the reverse happens quickly, and idle freighter capacity returns to the market.

For forwarders and shippers, firm rates this close to the peak season change behaviour in two directions. Buyers who have not yet secured capacity face the choice between committing at current levels or gambling on post-peak softening, and the later they wait, the fewer options remain on the primary trade lanes. At the same time, sustained rate strength pushes larger shippers toward longer-term agreements with carriers, trading price certainty for capacity certainty — a structural shift that the air freight market has exhibited since the pandemic-era capacity shortages first forced it.

The strength also carries a signal about the supply side. Air freight pricing is, at its core, a capacity utilisation market: rates rise when demand growth outruns the available belly and freighter supply on a given lane. Firm rates approaching the peak indicate that capacity is tight relative to current demand, whether because passenger belly capacity on cargo-heavy routes has not returned to the levels cargo shippers would prefer, because freighter supply has plateaued, or because demand itself is running ahead of seasonal norms. Each of those explanations has different implications for how long the strength persists once the peak passes.

The question that follows every strong peak-season setup is durability. Air freight has repeatedly shown that rate strength concentrated in a few weeks of seasonal surge does not necessarily carry into the first quarter, when demand falls back and carriers compete for off-peak loads. The pattern of recent cycles has been higher seasonal peaks sitting on top of a gradually normalising base, with rates elevated relative to pre-pandemic history but well off the extraordinary levels reached during the capacity crises of the early 2020s.

What shippers, forwarders and carriers watch from here is whether the current strength holds through the peak itself, how sharply it retreats in the new year, and whether contract negotiations for next year's capacity are conducted against a backdrop of tightness or of surplus. The Air Cargo News reading of firm rates as the peak approaches suggests the market is entering that test from a position of strength.