Air freight rates were supposed to fall this year. As recently as December 2025, market intelligence provider Xeneta was forecasting a 5 to 10 percent decline in shipper long-term air cargo rates through 2026. Instead, Xeneta has just revised that outlook to a 5 to 15 percent increase, a swing large enough to upend freight budgets built around the original forecast. For any e-commerce business that relies on air freight, whether for fast-moving inventory, high-value goods, or cross-border direct-to-consumer shipping, that reversal is worth understanding in detail.

Forecasts like Xeneta's are widely used across the industry precisely because they rarely move this far this fast. Freight teams, finance departments, and even retail buyers lean on rate outlooks to set landed cost assumptions well before a single container or air waybill is booked, so a reversal of this size does not just change one number, it forces a recheck of every budget built on top of it.

The revision did not come out of nowhere. Combined spot and long-term air cargo rates were already up 17 percent year on year in the first half of 2026, well ahead of what a 5 to 10 percent annual decline forecast would suggest. Xeneta points to a specific trigger: an escalation of the Middle East conflict on February 28, 2026, that removed roughly 12 percent of global air cargo capacity overnight.

The result is a market where demand is growing faster than capacity can recover, and air freight, historically one of the more predictable line items for cross-border sellers, has become one of the harder ones to plan around.

From a Forecast Decline to a Real Increase

The gap between Xeneta's original and revised forecasts is unusually wide for an established market intelligence provider. Going from an expected 5 to 10 percent decline to a 5 to 15 percent increase is not a modest correction, it is a full reversal of direction. That kind of swing typically only happens when a genuine supply shock hits a market that was otherwise trending toward normalization.

Global air cargo capacity grew just 1 percent in the first half of 2026, far below what carriers and shippers had planned for heading into the year. Demand, meanwhile, grew 4 percent, comfortably ahead of Xeneta's original full-year forecast of 2 to 3 percent. That combination, capacity barely growing while demand outpaces even the optimistic case, is exactly the setup that pushes rates upward regardless of what a December forecast predicted.

It's worth putting these percentages in dollar terms shippers can actually feel. A seller moving a modest volume of air freight each month, say a few pallets of a fast-selling new product line, could see the freight component of landed cost rise by double digits year over year under the new forecast, exactly the kind of swing that erodes a promotional price point set months in advance.

What's Driving the Capacity Shock

The proximate cause is straightforward. When the Middle East conflict escalated at the end of February 2026, it removed a meaningful slice of global air cargo capacity essentially overnight, roughly 12 percent by Xeneta's estimate. Air cargo capacity does not come back quickly once it is pulled from a network. Aircraft need to be repositioned, routes need to be rebuilt, and carriers are naturally cautious about recommitting capacity to a region while conditions remain unsettled.

Semiconductors Are Reshaping Transpacific Demand

A second, less obvious force is also at work on the demand side. Global semiconductor sales jumped 106 percent year on year in April 2026, the strongest increase since comparable records began in 1986. AI-related goods now drive a disproportionate share of Transpacific air cargo demand despite representing less than 10 percent of total volumes. High-value, time-sensitive semiconductor and AI hardware shipments compete directly for the same limited belly and freighter capacity that e-commerce parcels rely on, and they are generally willing to pay more to secure it.

This is not the first time a high-value tech cycle has squeezed out other cargo on the same routes. Air freight capacity is shared space on passenger and freighter aircraft alike, and when one category of cargo can pay a premium for guaranteed space, carriers naturally prioritize it. E-commerce shippers do not compete on the same terms as a semiconductor manufacturer racing a product launch.

The Low-Value Parcel Wildcard

At the same time capacity is tightening, one major source of air cargo demand is shrinking. China's low-value exports fell 7 percent year on year in May 2026, the sixth consecutive monthly decline. Xeneta cites tightening EU import rules for low-value parcels as a contributing factor. For years, small parcel cross-border e-commerce, much of it low-value direct-to-consumer shipments from Chinese platforms, was a major driver of air cargo volume growth. That growth engine is now running in reverse in at least one major market.

This creates an uneven picture depending on what kind of shipper you are. A seller moving high-value, time-sensitive goods is competing against surging semiconductor and AI hardware demand for scarce capacity. A seller moving low-value parcels into markets tightening de minimis and import rules is dealing with a different problem: rising per-shipment costs and compliance friction that make small parcel air shipping less economical regardless of freight rates. Both pressures point toward higher effective cost per shipment, just through different mechanisms.

It is also worth watching whether other markets follow the EU's lead on low-value parcel rules. If similar thresholds tighten in additional destination markets, the decline in low-value air cargo volume could deepen further, which would keep reshaping the competitive landscape for capacity even after the current Middle East-driven shock eases.

What This Means for E-commerce Shippers

The immediate effect is straightforward: air freight is a more expensive and less certain line item than it looked six months ago. Sellers who built Q3 and Q4 freight budgets around a forecast decline are now working against an increase instead, and that gap needs to be closed somewhere, whether through pricing, sourcing changes, or a shift toward ocean freight for goods that can tolerate longer transit times.

There is also a capacity-access dimension. When high-value cargo like semiconductors is willing to pay a premium for guaranteed space, e-commerce shippers competing on cost rather than urgency risk getting bumped down the priority list during the tightest weeks of the year, typically right around peak season, which is exactly when reliable transit times matter most.

None of this means air freight becomes unusable, it means it becomes more selective. The sellers who come out ahead will be the ones who treat air freight as a deliberate choice for specific SKUs and moments, rather than a default mode they reach for out of habit.

How to Manage Rising Air Freight Costs

• Reassess which SKUs genuinely need air freight speed and shift anything that can tolerate a longer transit time onto ocean freight instead.
• Lock in capacity commitments and rates with forwarders earlier than usual, since spot rates are the most exposed to further spikes if capacity stays tight.
• Track de minimis and low-value parcel import rule changes in every destination market you ship into, not just your largest one, since rules are shifting market by market.
• Diversify across more than one air freight forwarder or carrier relationship so a single capacity crunch on one network does not strand your inventory.
• Build a wider cost buffer into Q3/Q4 freight budgets than the original 2025 forecasts suggested, given how far off those forecasts already are.
• Revisit routing and consolidation options that can reduce the number of billable shipments, since per-shipment costs matter more as low-value thresholds tighten.

Common questions

Why did Xeneta reverse its 2026 air freight rate forecast?

Xeneta originally forecast a 5 to 10 percent decline in shipper long-term rates for 2026, but revised that to a 5 to 15 percent increase after a Middle East conflict escalation in late February 2026 removed roughly 12 percent of global air cargo capacity, while demand kept growing faster than capacity could recover.

How does the low-value parcel decline affect air freight rates?

Falling low-value e-commerce export volumes, driven partly by tightening EU import rules, remove one source of demand from the air cargo market, but they are being offset by surging demand for high-value goods like AI semiconductors, so overall rates are still rising even as this one segment shrinks.

Should e-commerce sellers switch from air to ocean freight?

For goods that can tolerate longer transit times, shifting volume from air to ocean freight is one of the most direct ways to reduce exposure to rising air cargo rates, though it requires more lead time in inventory planning.

Air freight has always been the fast, expensive option in a shipper's toolkit, and 2026 is making clear how quickly that price tag can move when conflict, semiconductor demand, and shifting parcel rules collide in the same market. Sellers who can shift flexibly between air, ocean, and multiple carrier relationships as conditions change are the ones who absorb a shock like this instead of passing it straight to customers. Building that flexibility is exactly what a multi-carrier Logistics OS for e-commerce like Zineps is designed to do.