Air freight activity remains "fairly muted" in the June 27 to July 1 with this week's Baltic Air Freight Index.

In its latest release, TAC Index said this is up only 0.3% week-on-week, though still ahead 30.9% year-on-year amid signs that consumers are planning to tighten belts ahead of potential stagflation and recession — and business users are either not yet ramping up cargoes out of China as expected or have already restocked inventories to some extent.

TAC Index noted that outbound rates from Shanghai were flat week-on-week at 0.0%, while Hong Kong dropped -3.3% with Singapore again an outlier with a week-on-week gain of 24.7%.

Current year-on-year gains for Shanghai and Singapore are more in-line at 39.1% and 38.3% respectively, it added.

It noted that out of Europe, prices out of London Heathrow were again softer with a week-on-week loss of -1.4% for a year-on-year change of -6.8%.

"Frankfurt was an outlier with a week-on-week gain of 7.2% taking the year-on-year change there to a chunk 59.3% — perhaps driven by rising demand for key components in Asia as well as manufactured goods globally.