By Charlotte Goldstone 30 July 2026Global air cargo demand strengthened again last month, as Middle Eastern hub operations began recovering from the recent geopolitical disruption – although capacity growth continued to lag demand, reinforcing a tighter market and preserving pricing power for airlines. According to the latest IATA data, industry-wide cargo tonne km (CTK) rose 8.5% year on year in June, while international cargo traffic increased 9.6%. Demand was largely driven by “urgent inventory movements of AI and semiconductor cargo” – Asia-North America traffic, the largest air cargo corridor, grew 14.7%, extending its run of monthly growth. Those findings mirror observations from Xeneta, whose air freight specialists said during a recent webinar that demand linked to AI infrastructure continued to support elevated freight markets. Matthew Gore, partner at law firm HFW, told The Loadstar most of the shipper-freight forwarder air freight agreements he’d overseen typically had a quarterly rather than annual validity.