E-commerce remains the most durable driver of air cargo demand, according to Air Cargo Week's latest assessment of the sector. The trade title's framing — resilient, not surging — is the story operators across the Pacific and transatlantic have been describing since the second half of 2024.

That distinction matters. Air cargo spent 2021 and 2022 running red-hot on pandemic e-commerce volumes, then corrected sharply as ocean reliability returned and consumers shifted some spend back to services. General cargo never fully recovered. E-commerce did. The baseline moved up and has stayed there.

What does this change for carriers and forwarders?

For carriers, operationally, very little. Networks built to move small-parcel, high-velocity SKUs out of southern China and Southeast Asia kept running through the downturn. Integrators took the bulk of the volume, but scheduled freighters out of Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Incheon, Anchorage and Cincinnati absorbed meaningful share. Charter demand for cross-Pacific e-commerce blocks has cooled from its 2024 peak. Scheduled service has picked up most of what charters once handled.

For forwarders, the picture is harder. E-commerce platforms negotiate directly with carriers and integrators at scale, cutting the traditional forwarder out of the rate conversation. The forwarder who offers origin consolidation, multi-jurisdiction customs, and last-mile coordination still earns a margin. The one whose pitch is moving a general cargo ULD across the Pacific is finding that slot harder to monetise.

Why the equipment mix is shifting

The product profile explains the equipment. E-commerce shipments favour narrowbody freighters and converted regional jets almost as much as the widebodies integrators typically run. 767-300BCFs, 757-200F conversions, and A321-200PCFs now rotate lanes that, five years ago, would have been a 747-8F or 777F turn. Operators reconfigured quickly. They are unlikely to reconfigure back.

Air Cargo Week's "resilient" framing — rather than "surging" — is the operative word. The growth rate stepped down from the 2021-2022 boom. The absolute volume continues to climb. For a market that grew accustomed to double-digit annual tonnage gains, a steady mid-single-digit increase looks modest. Against a global air cargo market that has run flat or negative in recent months, e-commerce is the only segment posting consistent year-on-year growth.

Where the risk sits

The risk is concentration. A handful of Chinese platforms — Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop, alongside Amazon's cross-border business — drive a disproportionate share of the cross-Pacific flow. Any one of them adjusting its logistics playbook would ripple through the freighter schedule. Carriers have responded with multi-year capacity deals, locking in lift that protects them against a sudden platform-level pivot. The cost is reduced flexibility if volumes contract.

Tariff policy is the other swing variable. De minimis treatment for low-value e-commerce parcels remains a flashpoint in Washington, Brussels and several Latin American capitals. A tightening of the duty-free threshold — long signalled, repeatedly delayed — is the single biggest policy risk carriers cite when asked. Any change would hit e-commerce volume directly and force a rapid rebalancing of the freighter network.

The read-through for general cargo shippers

For shippers outside the e-commerce complex, the read-through is competitive. Air cargo capacity tied up in scheduled e-commerce rotations is capacity not chasing general cargo tenders. That keeps yields on ad-hoc lift firmer than they would otherwise be. It also means that, when general cargo does recover, the capacity response will be slower and the rate move sharper than in a market where e-commerce is not soaking up the available lift.

The near-term trajectory, in short, is more of the same. E-commerce holds the floor. General cargo decides the ceiling. Air Cargo Week's read lines up with what operators have been saying quarter after quarter: the structural demand story is intact, even if the boom is over.