Data centre components now account for 1.4 million tonnes of annual air cargo, growing 39 percent year on year and absorbing roughly 5 percent of global volumes, according to aviation consultancy Aevean.

The surge followed US Customs and Border Protection's 24 June codification of the suspension of the US$800 de minimis exemption — a rule change that cut average daily air cargo volume at UPS by 34.8 percent in May and June 2025 but has since rebuilt around higher-value freight.

What did de minimis removal do to US air cargo?

CBP suspended the exemption first for China and Hong Kong in May 2025, then for the rest of the world that August. UPS chief executive Carol Tomé told investors on a second-quarter earnings call: "An increased tariff and the elimination of de minimis exceptions resulted in a year-over-year drop in average daily volume of 34.8 percent for the months of May and June."

Cross-border e-commerce bore the brunt of the policy shift. FedEx recorded nine months of declining international export package volume in fiscal 2026 before closing the year up 1 percent. UPS has since cut lower-margin Amazon business to free capacity for premium freight.

What is filling the empty capacity?

Marco Bloemen, managing director at Aevean, framed the split bluntly: "We really have two different bases. We have a US slowdown and we have the rest of the world growing."

Between April and November, high-tech freight alone added roughly 300,000 tonnes into the US air cargo market. Semiconductor, cloud and AI-related shipments now take precedence over e-commerce. Patrik Gaehwiler, president and chief executive of JAS USA, called capacity the new choke point:

"The removal of de minimis has materially reduced traditional e-commerce volumes into the US. The more significant constraint today is limited capacity, with high-value, high-priority cargo, particularly cloud, semiconductor and AI-related goods, taking precedence over lower-value shipments."

Priority freight now books earlier, displaces lower-value cargo and pushes cutoff times forward. Estes Forwarding Worldwide noted in February that priority cargo "is booked earlier, protected more aggressively, and often displaces freight with flexible delivery windows." For shippers outside those categories, bookable capacity at predictable rates is shrinking even when headline capacity looks adequate.

How has UPS repositioned?

The integrator's forwarding revenue climbed 8.1 percent in the second quarter on higher international air freight rates. Tomé told analysts UPS is "focused on premium, high-quality volume."

By July 2026 Tomé said the company had "returned to year-over-year volume growth on the China-to-US lane," a recovery that began in May. The mix shift supports higher per-shipment yields but erodes predictability for e-commerce forwarders, who now compete for residual capacity.

Has the rule change become permanent?

Yes. The de minimis suspension rests on separate statutory authority from the IEEPA tariffs the US Supreme Court invalidated in February. Within hours the administration reimposed global duties under Section 122 of the Trade Act. De minimis remained untouched, and CBP's 24 June rulemaking has locked the suspension into regulation — outside the reach of any future Section 122 reversal.

What about the compliance load?

Laurie Arnold, vice president of trade and compliance at JAS USA, said optical character recognition tools now extract data from commercial invoices, bills of lading, certificates of origin and Participating Government Agency documents. Brokers then validate entries before filing.

"Instead of manually keying large amounts of information, we can focus on reviewing and validating the data for accuracy," Arnold said. "This improves productivity and helps reduce the potential for clerical errors."

The technology has limits. Arnold cautioned: "The industry is still far from a completely touchless environment. Licensed customs brokers and compliance specialists must evaluate the information, apply regulatory knowledge, make informed decisions, and exercise professional judgment throughout the entry process."

The higher-value freight mix raises exposure to misclassification and tariff error. OCR supports the workflow but cannot replace licensed judgement at the entry stage.

What comes next for shippers?

As data centre construction absorbs air cargo capacity through 2026, the technology freight tailwind is set to continue, booking windows for e-commerce are expected to tighten, and the codified de minimis suspension is now insulated from any future Section 122 reversal.