Something remarkable is happening in air cargo right now, and it has almost nothing to do with the usual suspects.
E-commerce, for years the engine of air freight growth, has lost its grip on the narrative. In its place, a new demand driver has emerged-one that moves in heavier boxes, pays premium rates without blinking, and doesn't care much about seasonal slowdowns. AI hardware. Servers. Semiconductors. Data centre equipment.
The numbers tell the story plainly. AI-related cargo's share of total air freight has climbed from just under 15% to over 18% in three years. In June, demand for AI and semiconductor shipments helped push global air cargo volumes up more than 8% year on year, with the Asia–North America corridor-the world's largest air cargo lane-growing almost 15%. By August, US air imports by weight hit another record, with computer parts and memory components alone adding tens of thousands of tonnes compared with the year before.
But here's the part that matters for anyone paying a freight bill: capacity isn't keeping up.
The Gap Between Demand and Space
Available cargo space grew just over 4% in June, while demand rose more than 8%. That gap pushed load factors higher and handed negotiating leverage back to the airlines. One industry intelligence platform put it bluntly: "The crisis is not over, and it's also buoyed by the great demand for AI shipments".
For shippers, that leverage shift has consequences. Xeneta warned that cargo owners holding aggressively priced long-term contracts may struggle to secure the same service levels, because forwarders are increasingly reliant on spot purchasing to cover their commitments. When the spot share of airline capacity climbs above a certain threshold, it becomes difficult for forwarders to support fixed-price annual deals at all.
In other words: the AI boom isn't just lifting volumes. It's rewriting the rules of how capacity is secured, priced, and contracted.
Not All AI Trade Lanes Are Created Equal
If you assume "AI cargo" means one big, uniform surge, the data says otherwise. The picture is sharply uneven by geography and product type.
Taiwan and Thailand are seeing short-term high growth, driven by chip manufacturing and AI hardware exports. Korea and Vietnam are on a more sustained trajectory, supported by semiconductor and memory demand. China, by contrast, is in a phase of demand adjustment-still moving significant volumes, but with a different growth profile.
The operational reality reflects that divergence. Airfreight capacity out of Taiwan remains tight, with rates rising across routes on persistent AI and semiconductor demand. Load factors from Korea to the US are approaching the very high end of the range, while volumes from China to the US remain comparatively softer.
This matters because it shapes where the squeeze is most acute-and where a shipper's ability to secure space depends on relationships rather than rate sheets.
The Forwarder Squeeze-and the Technology Response
The changing demand picture is also changing how forwarders operate. DSV's global head of airfreight noted that forwarders now need to balance firm capacity commitments with flexible airline bookings, taking account of hyperscaler demand and gateway constraints. Morrison Express has reassessed its gateways around growing hyperscaler production in Southeast Asia and exceptionally high Taiwanese volumes.
And technology is emerging as a differentiator. C.H. Robinson recently expanded AI tools into air freight quoting and customs, cutting quoting times from about a day to minutes. The company's framing is instructive: when plans change or disruptions occur, customers can more quickly evaluate a new routing, mode, or schedule-and faster quoting helps secure suitable carriers before space disappears.
That's the competitive edge in this market. Not just having capacity, but being able to identify it, price it, and lock it down faster than the next guy-especially when the cargo is high-value, time-critical, and unforgiving of delay.
Where Xiamen AE Global Fits In
This is the environment we operate in every day at Xiamen AE Global. Since 2018, we've been helping clients navigate capacity-constrained air freight markets, and we hold IATA, FIATA, FMC, and NVOCC credentials-which, in practical terms, means we talk directly to carriers, ground handlers, and customs authorities rather than waiting in a queue.
When AI hardware demand tightens space on Asia–North America and intra-Asia lanes, the difference between a confirmed booking and a rolled shipment comes down to who you know and how quickly you can act. We work with more than a hundred overseas agents worldwide, and those relationships give us ground-level intelligence on which gateways are genuinely full, which services still have room, and where alternative routings make sense.
We also handle consolidation in-house, so we're not passing your cargo to a third party and hoping it gets prioritised. In a market where smaller shipments are the first to be bumped, that control matters.
And because we operate across sea, air, and rail, we can weigh whether a time-critical AI component genuinely needs to fly-or whether a smarter multimodal routing gets it there almost as fast, without paying for a peak-season air premium.
The Bottom Line
The AI boom is real, and it's reshaping air cargo in ways that go well beyond a temporary rate spike. Demand is structurally strong. Capacity is structurally tight. And the shippers who come out ahead won't be the ones with the biggest contracts-they'll be the ones with a partner who can see where the space is before it disappears.
At Xiamen AE Global, we don't just move boxes. We help our clients get a seat when everyone else is still refreshing their tracking page.
Shipping AI hardware or time-critical cargo? Contact Xiamen AE Global today-and let's find the capacity that others can't.
