Copyright: AUUSanAKUL/ Shutterstock
Widebody freighter capacity on the transpacific trade lane has settled down in recent weeks after a volatile couple of months due to US tariff changes.
The latest figures from Rotate show that weekly widebody freighter capacity on the headhaul transpacific trade for the week commencing 2 June stood at 63,000 tonnes, down around 3,000 tonnes compared with the previous week.
It appears the weekly figure seems to be settling around 60,000-65,000 tonnes after peaking in late March and then dropping rapidly in April due to the implementation of tariffs and the ending of the de minimis exemption for Chinese e-commerce shipments.
At the peak for the year so far for capacity on the trade, weekly widebody freighter capacity on the trade lane stood at 75,000 tonnes as carriers responded to shippers’ front-loading of cargo ahead of the start of tariffs.
In the week commencing 5 May, shortly after the removal of the de minimis exemption and when US tariffs on China stood at 145%, capacity had dropped to 51,000 tonnes - a 32% decline from the peak in March.
Since then, cargo demand on the trade has picked up following the 90-day reduction of US tariffs on China to 30%, and as a result, capacity was reintroduced, reaching 66,000 tonnes for the week commencing 26 May.
Last week, freighter capacity on the trade was 19.5% down from the March peak and in line with the weekly average for the year of 63,000 tonnes.
Looking at trades where widebody freighter capacity has grown since the peak, the Asia to Europe trade has seen a 7.7% increase comparing the week starting 24 March and the week of 2 June, there was a 5.1% increase on services from the Middle East to Europe and a 6.9% increase from Latin America to North America.
Conversely, the transatlantic trade has had around 15% of its widebody freighter capacity removed between the end of March and the start of June in line with the seasonal increase in passenger operations.
