Global air freight index BAI00 +0.2% to 2,444, up 20.2% year-on-year to Sep 14

Air freight this year has been a slow grind higher, and the latest TAC Index reading to 14 September keeps that story intact. The headline Baltic Air Freight Index, BAI00, moved up 0.2% on the week to 2,444. That weekly move is tiny, almost flat, but the year-on-year number is the one to respect: 20.2% above last September. When an index is up a fifth year on year and still drifting up weekly, you are not looking at a spike that's about to fall back. You're looking at a plateau that's leaning uphill.

Break it down by lane and you see the same split we keep seeing on the ocean side. Outbound Shanghai, BAI80, slipped 0.7% week on week but it's still 18.5% above a year ago. Frankfurt, BAI20, rose 3.2% to 1,139. Chicago, BAI50, jumped 15.1% to 1,337. So the origins aren't all moving together. Shanghai is taking a breather week on week while Europe and the US hubs climb. If you're routing ex-Shanghai you got a tiny bit of relief this week; if you're routing via Frankfurt or into Chicago you got hit harder. The index average hides which one is your problem.

The real driver here is not demand, it's cost, and the cost is fuel. Platts has jet fuel up more than 100% year on year. Let that land. Your air freight rate is built on top of fuel, and when fuel doubles, the fuel component of your rate doubles, and carriers pass that through fast. Crude above US$100 a barrel is the backdrop, and every time crude holds above that line the forwarders I talk to get nervous about another leg up before the peak shipping season. This is not a demand boom pushing rates. It's a cost shock squeezing them from underneath, and cost shocks are stickier than demand spikes.

Let me put numbers on it with a worked example, and I'll state the assumptions so you can swap in your own. Assume you move 30 tonnes a month by air ex-Shanghai (that's 30,000 kg). Assume a Shanghai outbound rate of about US$3.50 per kg, which is consistent with the lane being up 18.5% year on year from roughly US$2.95 a year ago. At 3.50 per kg, your monthly air cost is 30,000 times 3.50, which equals 105,000 US dollars. A year ago at 2.95 per kg the same 30 tonnes was 30,000 times 2.95, which equals 88,500. So the year-on-year move alone added 16,500 dollars a month to this lane for you, and that's before any fuel surcharge adjustment on top, because the index rate I used already blends the market. If jet fuel keeps climbing and crude stays above 100, the forwarders' warning of renewed upward pressure is not speculation, it's arithmetic.

Now think about what that means for your routing choices. When Shanghai is softening week on week but still expensive year on year, and Frankfurt and Chicago are climbing, the old habit of routing everything through the cheapest origin can backfire. A shipment that could originate in Shanghai might save you the 0.7% weekly dip, but if your real constraint is total landed cost including the long-haul air into Chicago at BAI50 up 15.1%, then where you originate matters less than where you land. Map the full path, not just the first leg.

What do you actually do? If you have regular air volume, lock capacity and rate where you can. Air doesn't have the same contract culture as ocean, but the big forwarders will give you a defended block space or a rate hold if you commit volume, and on a lane climbing 15% in a week like Chicago, a held rate is gold. I've watched shippers treat air as a pure spot buy and then get quoted a number that made them wince at exactly the moment they had to move. A committed block beats a spot prayer.

Hedge with mode. Air freight at these levels is a premium you pay when sea or sea-air can't make the date. If your goods can tolerate a few extra days, sea-air via an intermediate hub can cut the cost meaningfully versus pure air, and when the air index is up 20% year on year that gap widens. Sea-air isn't free money, it adds handling and a bit of risk, but for non-critical inventory it's the valve that takes pressure off the air budget. Use it before you accept a 105,000-dollar monthly air bill as fate.

Watch the fuel surcharge line item like a hawk, because that's where the jet fuel doubling shows up. Carriers and forwarders apply a fuel surcharge that's tied to the fuel price, and when jet fuel is up 100% plus, that surcharge is doing a lot of the lifting on your invoice. Ask for the fuel surcharge basis in writing and track it week to week. If crude holds above 100, expect that line to keep rising into peak. Budget the fuel, not just the base.

For the smaller players who can't commit block space, consolidate. Air freight loves consolidation because a full pallet beats loose pieces on both rate and handling. Get together with other shippers through a forwarder's consolidation program so you're not buying broken-up space at the worst moment. And book early relative to your need; air cut-offs are tighter than people expect, and a missed consolidation window pushes you to spot.

Manage the calendar. Forwarders are warning of renewed pressure before peak season, which means the rates you see in late September could be the low point before the climb. If you have flexibility to pull forward air shipments that you'd otherwise send in November, doing so now could save you the differential. If you can't pull forward, at least know the window is open now and likely closes soon.

I'll be straight about the risk. The bull case for air rates calming is that demand stays soft and fuel eases. The bear case, and the one the forwarders are pointing at, is crude holding above 100 and jet fuel staying doubled into peak, which feeds straight into the surcharge and the base. Given where BAI00 is at 20.2% year on year, I'd plan for the bear case and be happy if the bull shows up. Hope is not a freight strategy.

The people who handle air volatility well are the ones who locked blocks when rates were calmer, who mapped full-path cost instead of first-leg cost, and who kept a sea-air option warm. The people who get hurt are the ones who treat air as a tap they turn on only in an emergency, then pay emergency prices. At 2,444 on the index and climbing under the surface, this is a year to treat air as planned, not as panic.

The fuel surcharge mechanism deserves a closer read, because it's where the jet fuel doubling actually lands on your invoice. Carriers apply a fuel surcharge as a percentage of the base rate, and that percentage is reset on a published schedule tied to the fuel index. When jet fuel is up 100% plus, that surcharge percentage is high, and it's applied to your full base, so a 20% year-on-year base increase plus a fat fuel surcharge compounds into a much larger total than either number alone suggests. Ask your forwarder for the fuel surcharge table and the reset dates, and model your cost on the next reset, not the current one. Fuel doesn't usually fall fast once it's doubled; the forwarders' warning about renewed pressure is the more likely path, and your budget should assume the next reset is higher, not lower.

Sea-air is the valve most shippers underuse, and at these index levels it's worth a real look. The idea is simple: move the goods by sea to an intermediate hub, then by air the last long leg, capturing most of the speed at a fraction of the pure-air cost. Say your 30 tonnes from Shanghai can go sea to, for example, a Middle East or European hub and then air to the US. The sea leg is cheap, the air leg is shorter than Shanghai-to-US, so the total is well below 105,000 a month even with the handling. The trade-off is time and a bit of extra touch risk, but for non-critical inventory this is the single biggest lever you have against a 20%-up air index. I've routed clients this way and cut air spend by a third while still hitting the date. It's not magic, it's just using the cheap mode where speed doesn't matter and the expensive mode only where it does.

Block space negotiation is where the big players protect themselves, and you can do a version of it even if you're not huge. Forwarders will defend a block, a guaranteed chunk of capacity at a held rate, if you commit volume for a period. On a lane like Chicago where BAI50 jumped 15.1% to 1,337 in a week, a held rate is enormous protection; the spot quote a month later could be brutally higher. The commitment doesn't have to be annual; even a peak-season block, say October through January, can lock you below where the market will be. I tell smaller importers to pool with others through a forwarder to reach the volume a block requires. Alone you're a spot buyer; together you're a block holder, and the rate difference on a climbing lane is the difference between a manageable quarter and a brutal one.

The Chicago spike specifically matters if you're a US importer, because Chicago is a major US air gateway and BAI50 up 15.1% signals inbound air into the US interior is getting expensive fast. If your goods land at Chicago and then move domestically, your total cost just rose not just on the international leg but on the sense that US air capacity is tight. Watch BAI50 as your early warning: when it climbs, your inbound is about to cost more, and locking capacity now beats chasing it later. Importers who ignore the hub indices and only watch their own lane quote get surprised at exactly the wrong moment.

Inventory pre-positioning is the strategic answer to sustained air cost, not a tactical one. If you know air will stay expensive through peak, shifting some inventory to a US or near-US warehouse ahead of time, moved by sea while it's cheap, means you don't need air at all for that stock. The calculus is: sea cost plus warehousing versus air cost. When air is up 20% year on year, the warehousing often wins even with the carrying cost of inventory. This only works if you can forecast demand well enough to pre-build the right stock, but for steady sellers it's the cleanest escape from air volatility. I've had clients move from panic-air every peak to pre-positioned sea stock and cut their peak air spend by more than half. The money went into warehouse rent, which is far cheaper than 105,000-a-month air.

Let me give you a second worked example on sea-air savings to make the number concrete. Take that same 30 tonnes a month. Pure air at 3.50 per kg is 105,000. Now route sea to an intermediate hub and air the final leg, and assume the blended effective rate comes to about 2.20 per kg all-in for the combined mode. That's 30,000 times 2.20, 66,000 a month. The saving versus pure air is 39,000 a month, about 156,000 across a four-month peak, and you still make the date if the sea-air transit fits your lead time. Even if sea-air is a touch slower, for non-critical stock the 39,000 monthly saving dwarfs the extra days. Run this against your own lead times before you accept pure air as inevitable.

The risk runs both ways and I'll say it plainly so you don't over-rotate. If crude falls back below 100 and jet fuel eases, air rates could soften, and locking a block now might look expensive later. But the forwarders' warning, the 20.2% BAI00 year-on-year, and crude holding above 100 all point the other way. Given that alignment, I'd rather lock and be mildly wrong than float and be badly wrong. Floating on a climbing lane is how you pay the peak. The bear case here is well-supported; the bull case needs fuel to cooperate, and fuel hasn't been cooperative.

The calendar point bears repeating because it's free. Forwarders warn of renewed pressure before peak; that means the rate you see in late September is likely the low before the climb. If you have any air volume planned for November that can move in late September or October, moving it now banks the lower rate. You can't always pull forward, but when you can, the saving is the gap between today's rate and peak rate, and on a 20%-up index that gap is not small. I treat the pre-peak window as the cheap window and fill it first.

For the smaller players who can't commit a block, consolidation remains the move, and on air it matters even more than on ocean because air rates are so sensitive to volume and density. A full consolidated pallet earns a better rate and better handling than loose pieces, and a forwarder's consolidation program gets you into capacity you couldn't buy alone. Book early relative to need, because air cut-offs are tighter than people expect and missing the consolidation window pushes you straight to spot at the worst time. I've watched small importers save more through disciplined consolidation than through any rate trick, because consistency beats cleverness on a volatile lane.

On picking the hub for a sea-air move, the choice drives the saving. A hub close to your origin but with cheap sea access and a strong air connection to your destination gives the best blend; a hub that's convenient but expensive on the air leg eats the gain. I usually model two or three hubs and pick by total cost into the final destination, not by which sounds familiar. The right hub this year may not be the right hub next year, because air-index moves shift the math. Treat hub selection as a number, not a habit.

Your suppliers' lead times are part of this whether you like it or not. If your factory quotes you a production window that slips, your carefully planned sea-air routing collapses into pure air at the worst moment. Loop the supplier into the mode decision: tell them which date the goods must be ready for the sea-air consolidation, and get that date in writing. I've had a great freight plan ruined by a factory that was two weeks late and a carrier that wouldn't wait. The cheap mode only works if the goods are actually there when the consolidation closes.

Build a contingency plan before you need it, because on a climbing lane the emergency always arrives on a Friday. Know your fallback: a second forwarder with block space, a sea-air hub you've already qualified, and the inventory you could pull from a near-US warehouse instead of airing. When rates jump 15% in a week like Chicago did, the shippers who had the fallback booked slept; the ones who discovered they had none paid. Contingency isn't pessimism, it's just having the next move ready.

Bring your internal stakeholders into the rate conversation before peak, not after. Procurement sees the air spend, sales sees the stockouts, and finance sees the margin, but too often they find out separately and after the fact. A short weekly note that says air index up 20% year on year, Chicago up 15% this week, we're locking block space keeps everyone aligned and stops the surprised questions in December. When the whole team understands that air is a planned cost this year, not an emergency, they make better calls on what to air, what to sea-air, and what to pre-position. Alignment is cheap; the alternative is three departments each discovering the problem on their own and none of them able to fix it.

If nothing else, treat this week as the signal it is. The index is up a fifth year on year, fuel is doubled, crude is over 100, and the hubs are climbing under the surface. That combination has not, in my experience, resolved itself quietly. Plan for the expensive case, book the space you can, and keep the sea-air and pre-position options warm so you're not forced into the worst rate at the worst moment.

作者 Leo

• Lock block space or a rate hold with your forwarder now, especially on Chicago (BAI50 up 15.1% to 1,337).
• Model sea-air via a hub to cut cost versus pure air while BAI00 is up 20.2% year on year.
• Track the fuel surcharge basis in writing week to week; budget fuel, not just the base rate.
• Consolidate with other shippers via a forwarder program instead of buying broken-up spot space.
• Pull forward air shipments planned for November to beat the pre-peak upward pressure warning.
• For 30 tonnes/month ex-Shanghai at ~3.50/kg, cap exposure near 105,000/month and watch fuel.