THE intra-Asia air freight market remains strong due to the transportation of raw materials and parts among China, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, reports Mumbai's Stat Trade Times,

"With production shifting away from China and e-commerce demand remaining soft, carriers may allocate more capacity to Southeast Asia instead," according to the latest update from Dimerco.

"TPEB traffic saw a slight surge in the second week of March but began to stabilise from the third week.

"E-commerce demand has remained weak since February, leading to ongoing block space agreement (BSA) and charter cancellations, particularly for shipments to the US.

This has resulted in an oversupply of capacity relative to demand." The recent surge in spot rates in early March is driven by shippers moving goods before the quarter-end.

"Many shippers had been holding shipments since January, waiting for tariff announcements by the Trump administration. With the quarter-end approaching, goods were released, and the market has now gone quiet," said Dimerco sales vice president Kathy Liu.

"Based on current trends, we expect the market slowdown to persist until June, unless there's a surge in e-commerce demand or new tariffs are introduced in the coming weeks.

"The increase in cargo volume was brief, lasting only two weeks and primarily from key gateways in China. Compared to the same period in 2024, the volume increase is not significant, with no notable capacity shortages in the market," she said.

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