Air cargo demand rose 11.2% year-on-year in February 2026, the International Air Transport Association said in its monthly market briefing.

The print caps a stretch of double-digit growth that has steadily shifted leverage toward carriers with owned freighter capacity and away from forwarders buying on the spot. February is historically a soft month for air freight in the post-Lunar New Year window, which makes the 11.2% reading harder to dismiss as base-effect noise.

What does an 11.2% demand print signal?

When air cargo demand jumps at double-digit year-on-year rates, the imbalance shows up first in load factors — the share of available tonne-kilometers actually filled with cargo. Carriers fill their freighters and belly holds faster, tender rejections rise, and spot rates climb within weeks.

For shippers, the consequence is concrete: tender cycles shorten, capacity guarantees weaken, and surcharges attach to what had been clean contract rates. Forwarders report that contract renegotiations, normally a quarterly event, have started appearing mid-cycle when prints like this one land.

Why air is winning share right now

Three structural forces have kept air cargo demand elevated well into 2026:

• Cross-border e-commerce parcel growth out of Asia, which compounds monthly and rarely substitutes down to ocean
• Persistent ocean schedule unreliability on transpacific and Asia-Europe lanes, pushing time-sensitive cargo toward air
• Pharmaceutical and biotech shipment volumes tied to clinical trial logistics and biologic drug distribution

Each adds tonnage to a capacity base that has grown only modestly since airlines began retiring older, less-efficient freighters and re-fleeting with newer narrowbody conversions.

How the supply side is responding

Airlines have moved on three fronts. They've accelerated freighter retirements and replaced older widebody freighters with next-generation narrowbody conversions. They've trimmed underperforming passenger routes and redeployed belly capacity toward cargo-rich corridors. And they've pushed freight pricing higher on contracts up for renewal, locking the demand surge into 2026 revenue.

The lag matters. Freighters take months to deliver and convert. Belly hold rides the slower pace of passenger network growth. Even an aggressive supply response leaves a two-to-three-quarter gap between demand pickup and capacity catch-up — exactly the window shippers are now navigating.

Carriers gain, forwarders feel the squeeze

The demand surge tilts commercial leverage toward airlines and integrated express operators with owned freighter fleets and dense hub networks. Combination carriers benefit twice — once from belly-hold revenue on passenger aircraft, and again from freighter capacity they can redeploy dynamically.

Independent freight forwarders absorb the opposite side of the trade. Without owned lift, they buy capacity at spot rates that move faster than their contract resets. Margin compression tends to follow double-digit demand prints within a quarter.

What shippers should watch

IATA's monthly air cargo statistics track demand, capacity, and load factor across the industry's main reporting carriers. The February 2026 print of 11.2% extends a run of year-on-year readings well above the long-run average.

Shippers with significant air exposure — particularly in electronics, pharmaceuticals, apparel, and perishables — should expect continued upward pressure on contract rates through the second quarter of 2026. Forwarders should brace for spot-driven margin pressure and accelerated contract renegotiations. The next IATA monthly release will land in early April and offer the first read on whether February's spike holds as a trend.