In the fourth quarter of 2023, the volume of cross-border e-commerce air freight packages exported from China exceeded 10,000 tons per day. Will it reach 20,000 or even 30,000 tons per day in 2024 or 2025?

Steven Wang: If there are enough cargo planes, it is possible to achieve these figures. However, the main issue currently is that the ceiling of air cargo capacity limits the development of cross-border e-commerce air freight volume.

The number of cargo planes in air freight is already insufficient to meet the demand for cross-border e-commerce packages.This is why Pinduoduo, for example, chooses to ship via sea to overseas warehouses, because the bottleneck in air freight limits the development of the full-managed model. Even if the volume increases to 20,000 or 30,000 tons in the future, it will be difficult to handle without sufficient dedicated cargo plane resources.

Currently, the development of cross-border e-commerce has already touched the ceiling of air cargo capacity supply. The delivery cycle of dedicated cargo planes is relatively long, and the decision-making process for purchasing long-haul wide-body cargo planes by domestic airlines is quite lengthy. During the pandemic, the passenger transport sector of domestic airlines suffered significant losses, leading to financial constraints. As planes are significant assets, purchase decisions are made more cautiously, and in the short term, it is difficult for capacity supply to keep up with the growth of e-commerce.

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Public Account: Cross-Border E-Commerce Logistics Expert