How passenger recovery masked Aviation’s supply chain fragility

Airfreight demand can look contradictory when viewed through aggregate volumes alone. Demand has been growing again in recent periods, while capacity has also expanded as passenger flights returned and belly-hold space increased. From an Asia-Pacific perspective, however, this apparent contradiction reflects a deeper change in how airfreight is being used by aviation and aerospace customers.

He points to post-pandemic recovery, ongoing capacity volatility, geopolitical uncertainty, and production ramp-ups as factors that have elevated the importance of speed and reliability across the region.This shift has altered where airfreight sits in supply chain planning. Wong notes that “airfreight has shifted from being a largely tactical, exception-based solution to a far more strategic and integral part of supply chain design.” The recovery of the aviation sector, combined with continuing disruption from tariffs and supply chain fragmentation, has pushed aerospace OEMs, MROs, and Tier-1 suppliers to prioritise resilience over pure cost efficiency. As a result, “airfreight is now planned earlier in the procurement and production cycle rather than used only as a last-minute contingency.”At the same time, the nature of logistics execution has become more complex. Wong observes that “there has been a clear shift toward more sophisticated logistics solutions,” with customers demanding “end-to-end visibility, tighter control over compliance and handling, and closer collaboration with logistics partners who understand aerospace-specific requirements such as traceability, certification, and time-critical operations.” In a region where supply chains span both mature hubs and emerging manufacturing locations, “airfreight has become the connective tissue that enables this complexity to function.”This evolution also explains why airfreight usage increasingly reflects planning rather than panic. While disruption-driven demand remains part of the picture, Wong emphasises that “there is a clear shift toward deliberate planning.” Aviation and aerospace customers are “embedding airfreight into their supply chain strategies as a risk-management tool rather than a last-minute solution,” including the use of “pre-defined lanes, AOG preparedness, and closer collaboration with logistics partners to ensure capacity access, visibility, and compliance when time-critical needs arise.”

Passenger capacity recovery has expanded the global cargo system through belly-hold capacity growth. IATA reporting has tracked extended periods of international belly-hold expansion, reflecting the continued restoration of passenger networks that carry freight alongside passengers.However, capacity recovery has coincided with sustained growth in airfreight demand rather than a structural decline in relevance. According to data from Rotate, global airfreight demand is approaching one of its longest uninterrupted growth cycles on record. As Jonathan Mellink, Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing at Rotate, explains, “the latest analysis of global air freight demand from Rotate shows that the industry is nearing its longest stretch of growth with 28 consecutive months of year-over-year international growth.” Over this period, “year-over-year growth averaged 7.9%, which is the highest period of growth seen since a 31-month stretch from 2016 to 2018.”Asia-Pacific has been a major contributor to this expansion. Mellink notes that “in the period measured October 2024 to September 2025, demand has grown 19% year-over-year.” Growth has been particularly pronounced on trade lanes connecting Asia-Pacific to Europe, where “APAC to Europe has seen the most robust growth year-over-year with an additional 638K tonnes (+19%) of demand transported,” he says. Exports to the Middle East and the United States also recorded solid gains during the same period.Beyond headline volumes, Mellink highlights how airfreight usage has shifted geographically and structurally. Trade policy changes in 2025, particularly U.S. tariffs, have reshaped sourcing patterns across Asia-Pacific. Mellink notes that “while China to U.S. exports have declined 25% year-over-year, exports from other APAC markets have increased 48%.” At the same time, Chinese exports were redirected to alternative markets, with “China to Europe demand” growing “32% year-over-year between May and August 2025.”These shifts underline that airfreight demand is increasingly concentrated by sector and trade lane rather than evenly distributed. Rotate’s trade databases also point to the continued importance of certain verticals. As Mellink explains, “eCommerce remains one of the most important verticals to air cargo,” with “eCommerce exports from China” growing “at a CAGR of 42% between 2022 and 2025.” Importantly, destination markets have diversified beyond the United States, with strong growth to countries such as Malaysia, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.Utilisation patterns further reinforce the differentiated roles of belly capacity and freighters. Mellink says that “passenger belly capacity has continued to be driven by network planners at the airlines who are seeking to capitalize on leisure and business travel passenger demand.” Freighter networks, by contrast, “have continued to be more dynamic.” Vietnam provides a clear example. Mellink notes that demand growth from Vietnam is “46% year-over-year,” and is driven primarily by exports of computers, audio-visual equipment, and communication devices to the United States. To support this surge, “freighter capacity from Vietnam increased by 29% year-over-year,” compared with “14% year-over-year,” he says.At a global level, capacity growth has at times exceeded demand growth, fuelling discussion around potential overcapacity. Mellink notes that between September and November 2025, “global air cargo capacity increased 6% year-over-year compared to demand growth of only 3.9%.” However, this imbalance is not uniform. Trade-lane analysis reveals sharp contrasts, with some corridors showing surplus capacity while others remain constrained. For example, Mellink highlights a “19-percentage point surplus of capacity” on Europe-to-Asia flows, while Asia-to-Middle East routes showed demand growth significantly outpacing capacity expansion.Airfreight’s long-term role will be shaped less by aggregate capacity levels and more by flexibility, modernisation, and network adaptability. Mellink points out that “several carriers are managing older fleets with longer renewal cycles that impact fuel efficiency, maintenance costs and sustainability metrics,while also contending with production and conversion delays. As a result, fleet planners must prioritise flexibility alongside modernisation.Network design will also remain under pressure from geopolitical fragmentation and trade policy uncertainty. On the operational side, Mellink adds that “operational resiliency will improve with greater utilization of digital tracking tools, AI for predictive disruptions and standardized data frameworks across the entire cargo lifecycle.”

As aviation enters 2026, the role of airfreight is increasingly defined by how deliberately it is deployed rather than how broadly it is used. Passenger recovery has restored scale and baseline capacity to global networks, but it has not reduced the complexity or fragility of aviation and aerospace systems.From a shipper and supply chain perspective, this reinforces a clear behavioural shift. Vincent Wong notes that airfreight usage is becoming “more selective, targeted, and purpose-driven rather than broadly applied.” Cost discipline continues to push non-urgent volumes toward alternative modes, but airfreight remains indispensable for cargo where “time, reliability, and compliance are mission-critical, such as aviation and aerospace components, high-value electronics, and production-critical parts.”This selectivity places new demands on airline networks in Asia-Pacific. Wong emphasises that competitive advantage will come “less from sheer capacity and more from how intelligently that capacity is deployed.” As manufacturing footprints diversify and supply chains stretch across mature hubs and emerging markets, airlines that can align networks with key production centres, support complex cargo requirements, and respond quickly to demand spikes will be best positioned to capture this targeted demand. In this environment, Wong argues, “the future of airfreight in Asia-Pacific will be defined by precision, agility, and execution not volume alone.”Rotate’s analysis shows that even as global capacity expands, airfreight demand continues to be absorbed unevenly across trade lanes and sectors. Mellink highlights that geopolitical fragmentation and trade policy uncertainty are actively reshaping flows, encouraging supply chains to diversify sourcing and routing. These dynamics have direct implications for fleet planning. Mellink notes that “several carriers are managing older fleets with longer renewal cycles that impact fuel efficiency, maintenance costs and sustainability metrics,” while also contending with production and conversion delays. Operational resilience is also emerging as a differentiator. Mellink points out that while the industry has made progress in digitisation, “there is still room for investment.”