Cover Story
2025 Annual Review & Outlook
S & P Global in September forecast total US imports to slip 4.4 % in 2025 . Images on this spread : Background : Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images and vehicles : Shutterstock . com
America hit a 2024 high of $ 6.61 per kilogram in early December , according to the Baltic Air Index . Shippers are changing their behavior as a result .
“ The closing months of 2024 could have been very messy again for shippers , but we are not hearing that ,” he said . “ That ’ s not because the volumes are not there , or the flights are not full , it is because everything , overall , is being managed better ,” said Niall van de Wouw , chief air freight officer at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta .
The International Air Transport Association ( IATA ) forecasts air cargo volume growth will decelerate to an expansion of 6 % in 2025 , roughly half the clip seen in 2024 . New capacity will also enter the market at a slow rate , with IATA expecting a 6.4 % increase compared to a 9.6 % expansion in 2024 .
Driving through the doldrums
On land , US truckload demand and rates have been anything but volatile . Total truck volumes for the first 10 months of 2024 were 0.7 % below the same period in 2023 , according to the trucking ton-mile index produced by Jason Miller , Eli Broad professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University .
The American Trucking Associations ( ATA ) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index , based on freight volumes hauled by both truckload and less-than-truckload ( LTL ) members of ATA , was up 3 % from January in October , but the index was choppy and volatile throughout 2024 . In October , the index was up 1.2 % from September but flat year over year , according to ATA data .
Trump and a strike at US East and Gulf coast ports could sap capacity in the short-term , but encouragingly , the overall outlook for vessel capacity is robust . Container lines , for example , are set to deploy a record level of capacity in January — nearly 1.5 million TEUs — between Asia and the US , according to maritime intelligence provider eeSea .
“ Once we get to January , whether it ’ s on the political front , the labor front , the alliance shake-up , everything is coming fast ,” Sanjay Tejwani , CEO of consulting firm 365 Logistics , told the Journal of Commerce , referring to the new container carrier alliances launching in February .
Rarified air
If shippers do get in a pinch , they ’ ll likely find it even more difficult and more costly to turn to air cargo transport rather than ocean shipping . More than 12 months of double-digit percentage growth in air cargo demand that has outstripped available capacity is combining with constant waves of disruption is forcing shippers and their service providers to better plan their use of air freight . Chinese e-commerce giants Temu and Shein have fueled much of the growth even as the US and other countries look at tightening up de minimis levels .
Usually regarded by ocean shippers as an emergency option , air cargo is seeing a greater volume of non-essential products to get around container shipping challenges , a move that comes at a substantial cost to shippers . For example , average air cargo rates from Asia to North
8 Journal of Commerce | January 6 , 2025 www . joc . com