The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released a definitive report today highlighting the indispensable role of air cargo in stabilizing the global economy during a year marked by historic trade policy volatility.
Despite average US tariffs hitting a 90-year high of 17%, air cargo acted as a critical safety valve, enabling businesses to bypass logistics bottlenecks and sustain a 3.2% expansion in global GDP.
As trade frictions intensified in early 2025, many companies turned to the skies to preempt looming tariff hikes. The report reveals that US imports surged by $193 billion in the first quarter alone. Notably, air cargo accounted for 81% of this growth, transporting $157 billion in goods as businesses accelerated shipments to beat policy shifts.
The agility of air transport allowed global firms to rapidly reallocate trade lanes. As importers shifted sourcing away from tariff-heavy regions, air cargo captured the lion’s share of the gains:
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In the US: Air cargo carried 82% ($174 billion) of the value on expanding trade lanes.
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In Europe: The sector captured 48% of gains on new lanes while representing only 3% of losses on contracting ones.
“Air cargo is a structural component of global economic resilience,” said Julia Seiermann, IATA’s Head of Industry Analysis. “In 2025, it helped businesses absorb tariff shocks and enabled rapid trade restructuring, ensuring that policy headwinds did not ground global commerce.”
The report identifies the Artificial Intelligence (AI) investment boom as a primary driver of high-value air trade. In 2025, the speed and security of air transport became the primary vehicle for the hardware powering the AI era.
Key 2025 AI Trade Statistics:
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Market Share: Air cargo transported more than two-thirds of the total value of global AI-related trade.
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Growth: Consignments of AI-related goods (servers, memory chips, and data units) grew 20% year-on-year.
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Value Density: While AI goods represented only 7% of air cargo volume, they accounted for a staggering 53.5% of the total value of air-transported trade.
Thanks largely to the efficiency of the air cargo sector, global trade growth reached 2.4% in 2025—outperforming initial forecasts by the World Trade Organization (WTO). As global economies become increasingly reliant on high-value technology, IATA emphasizes that air cargo is no longer just a transport preference, but a strategic necessity for economic stability.
