{"id":104585,"date":"2026-02-27T12:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shipping.einnews.com\/article\/896160450"},"modified":"2026-02-27T12:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:50:07","slug":"hi-tech-boom-props-up-air-cargo-demand-despite-tariff-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/27\/hi-tech-boom-props-up-air-cargo-demand-despite-tariff-hit\/","title":{"rendered":"Hi-tech boom props up air cargo demand, despite tariff hit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"dreamstime_s_367329641\" <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Viktor Budyka <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
By Alex Lennane<\/a><\/address>\n

Air cargo demand in 2026 is reshaping.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Aevean MD Marco Bloemen forecasts capacity expansion this year will outpace global demand growth, but the market will be characterised by structural shifts.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe really have\u2026 two different bases,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a US slowdown and we have the rest of the world growing.\u201d<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

At the centre of that divergence are data centres, tariffs, and the redirection of ecommerce flows, with t<\/span>he single biggest demand driver right now being hi-tech linked to AI and data centre construction.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cData centre components make up 1.4m tonnes of annual air cargo,\u201d Mr Bloemen said, following growth of 39% year on year.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\"air<\/a><\/p>\n

That equates to roughly 5% of total global air cargo volumes \u2013 a significant share for a single vertical.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is significant, and it\u2019s been growing nearly40%,\u201d he said.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Between April and November alone, hi-tech added roughly 300,000 tonnes into the US market, effectively neutralising weakness elsewhere.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf the US was not importing all this hi-tech business, it would have shown complete negative air imports,\u201d he said. \u201cHi-tech saved the day for the US.\u201d<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The growth is concentrated in specific components: CPUs rose more than 60% year on year and ADP machine parts nearly 70%. These are heavy, high-value shipments that largely move on dedicated freighters.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

And Mr Bloemen sees no immediate slowdown.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI do think it\u2019s here to stay,\u201d he said. \u201cThe investments just require massive amounts of more data centre equipment.\u201d<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

If hi-tech is cushioning demand, tariffs are clearly suppressing it.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

US air imports from Europe grew strongly in the first half of last year before slipping into contraction in the second half, after new tariff measures were implemented.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\"air<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw that Europe to the US has been growing, on average, roughly 16% compared with the year before,\u201d Mr Bloemen said. \u201cThen the tariffs kicked in and then, literally, the growth stopped.\u201d<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The pattern was particularly visible in luxury goods. Italy and France saw heavy front-loading ahead of the tariff introduction, especially in high-value fashion and accessories, before volumes cooled sharply.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\"air<\/a>The country-level detail shows how uneven the tariff impact has been. The Netherlands saw one of the sharpest reversals, with air exports to the US down 17% in August\u2013December, largely driven by perishables.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerishables are quite price sensitive,\u201d Mr Bloemen said, noting that fresh bell peppers accounted for much of the drop. With a 15% tariff in place from July, those shipments \u201cdecreased strongly to be shipped as air freight\u201d, as margins simply could not absorb the additional cost.<\/p>\n

The UK also felt the shift, moving from 16% growth in the first seven months of the year to a 4% decline thereafter. Germany, by contrast, was \u201cnot that much affected\u201d, he said, underlining that tariff exposure varies sharply depending on commodity mix and price elasticity.<\/p>\n

The important nuance, however, is that volumes did not collapse; growth simply evaporated.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the fact that volumes are declining, but that they were growing before then, and that the growth is slow,\u201d he said.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Without hi-tech demand offsetting the weakness, the narrative would have been much harsher, he added: <\/span>\u201cYou would have had headlines saying US imports down by 10% because of tariffs and de minimis implications.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ecommerce remains a structural growth engine, but geography now matters more than volume.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Globally, ecommerce continues to grow at double-digit rates. However, China-US flows were hit hard after the de minimis changes, at one point falling sharply before partially recovering.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Bloemen cautioned against misreading volatile year-on-year comparisons.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOctober, November, December were incredibly good,\u201d he said of last year\u2019s peak, meaning later slowdowns could look more dramatic than they are.<\/span> <\/span>Instead, the business shifted.<\/span>  <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the third quarter, 40% of Temu\u2019s business was in Europe and only 31% to the US. It\u2019s completely flipped,\u201d he said.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Aevean\u2019s analysis shows an almost one-to-one relationship between Shein app usage and air cargo flows into individual markets.<\/span>  <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about de minimis being taken out in the US, then they will just shift to Europe or shift to Latin America,\u201d he said.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite tariff drag and geopolitical friction, Mr Bloemen does not expect a weak year in tonnage terms \u2013 \u201ci<\/span>t won\u2019t be a bad year\u201d, he said.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Strong outbound Asia lanes will continue to fill aircraft. The challenge lies more in network imbalance and profitability than in volume collapse.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to look at pricing and cost. Fuel will matter. That\u2019s a different story,\u201d he added.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

What is clear is that the key forces of 2025 are carrying through into 2026.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe data centre business is not over. The ecommerce business is not over. The tariffs are having their effect,\u201d he said.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Demand is still growing, but it it is being redirected, front-loaded, exempted and rebalanced.<\/span>  <\/span>And for now, hi-tech is doing more than expanding \u2013 it is holding the market together.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… .4m\u00c2\u00a0tonnes\u00c2\u00a0of annual air cargo<\/span>,\u00e2\u0080\u009d\u00c2\u00a0Mr\u00c2\u00a0Bloemen said, following growth … 5%\u00c2\u00a0of total global air cargo<\/span> volumes\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u0080\u0093\u00c2\u00a0a significant share for … to be shipped as air freight<\/span>\u00e2\u0080\u009d, as margins simply could not … Shein app usage and air cargo<\/span> flows into individual markets. \u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u0080\u009cWhen …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}