Aviation executives said the industry may have to “wait and see” how a new Trump presidency would impact air cargo amid fresh tariff threats from the incoming U.S. president and initiatives to tighten regulatory requirements for de minimis shipments.

Nonetheless, they signalled a positive outlook for the industry in 2025, citing various push factors, from continued e-commerce demand to frontloading ahead of possible tariff implementations and a boost from the ocean amid looming strike concerns at the U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports in January.

Jan Krems, president of United Cargo, said it is hard to tell how incoming U.S. president Donald Trump’s possible implementation of more tariffs, especially against China, will impact that market.

“I can say a lot about it, but we still don’t know,” he told a panel at the recent TIACA Air Cargo Forum in Miami. “It will happen for sure. That’s what he said and what he says, I think he will do. But we have to see what will happen.”

The United Cargo chief noted, however, that demand for air cargo will continue and airlines have proven in the past that it can be flexible in the face of any tariff implementation. “I think goods still have to be made, still have to be shipped to the U.S. and the tariffs and the rates, how that will work on e-commerce or on other products, I don’t know.”

“So I can’t say how much it will be, what will be the effect on us. They still need products in the U.S. The U.S. will still export products as well, so we will just see what will happen,” Krems added.

TIACA executive director Glyn Hughes cited Trump’s campaign statements suggesting that, once in office, he would implement tariffs of 60% on all imports from China and 10-20% on goods from other countries.

On the other hand, the U.S. also made moves to introduce tighter controls on e-commerce goods imported under the de minimis exemption, which currently exempts goods worth US$800 from paying duties and facing customs scrutiny, widely believed to be targeting ecommerce giants from China.

Dirk Goovaerts, global cargo chair at Swissport, noted that while there may be some impact and changes on the origin of cargo, the demand to transport these goods will continue.

“I think the air cargo transport is known for, in fact, its flexibility, but also its speed to bring the different commodities from point A to point B. This time I think we’ve been seeing a surge in e-commerce. Maybe next year, we don’t know. There might be a little drop, but then I think something will be picked up,” he told the panel.

Asok Kumar, executive vice president and head of global airfreight at DB Schenker, said additional tariffs would certainly impact the industry. This may also lead to frontloading as shippers rush to move cargo before new levies are implemented.

“I’m not an economist, but imposing 20% tariffs on goods outside of China and 60% on goods from China, logically, it would have an impact,” he said. “But it has been done before and we didn’t see the impact as wide-ranging as we would have expected. We will just really have to wait and see.”

“What I do think might happen is that there is a possibility that shippers would try to rush goods in advance of any such imposition, which means we might get a busy two, three months ahead. That could happen, though at the moment, I have not officially received any news from at least our customers about doing that, but logically that might happen.”

Tom Bradley, global director and GM of air cargo at Amazon Air Cargo, told the panel that administration changes are nothing new for Amazon. “We’ve kind of worked with five administrations over time, so we’re kind of used to administration changes and our focus is creating a policy environment that means that we can innovate on behalf of our customers,” he said.

“The one thing that we do know about the cargo industry is it’s volatile. It changes all the time. So, the focus for me and my team is creating, technology processes that mean that we can adapt really, really quickly because we know that things are going to change in months, years.”

Despite the challenges ahead, the executives remained optimistic about the industry outlook in 2025 as more flights are restarted and ongoing supply chain disruptions in ocean shipping tend to favour air freight. The boost from e-commerce shipments is also expected to continue.

Krems told the panel that 2024 started better than expected due to a modal shift from sea to air caused by issues on the Panama Canal and Red Sea disruptions.

“Looking ahead, I’m really confident about the fourth quarter. 2024 will be a fantastic year for us and 2025 will be a very good start,” Krems said, noting that with the ongoing wars and the disruptions between the U.S. and China, United will continue to operate below the 15 flights per day it offered pre-Covid.

By Charlee C. Delavin

Asia Cargo News | Miami