Airfreight rates have fallen from their Golden Week highs, yet the market remains firm by the standards of recent months. That is the headline finding reported by Air Cargo News in its latest read of the sector, and the pairing matters more than either half of it alone.

Golden Week — the string of Chinese national holidays in early October that shuts factories and slows exports — reliably pulls the pricing lever in air cargo. Freight forwarders (the intermediaries who buy cargo capacity in bulk and resell it to shippers) typically see spot rates, the price paid for immediate capacity rather than long-term contracts, soften once the holiday ends and shipments pause.

This year has followed that pattern. Rates dropped after the holiday window closed. The notable part is what did not happen next.

What does the rate drop actually change?

For shippers, a post-Golden Week dip normally translates into a brief window of cheaper capacity before the year-end peak season — the pre-Christmas cargo surge driven by e-commerce and retail restocking — pushes prices back up. The question this year is whether the dip signals a turning point or a pause.

On the evidence reported, it is a pause. Air Cargo News describes the market as remaining firm, which points to underlying demand still absorbing available capacity. When spot rates fall but the market stays firm, the mechanism is usually seasonal: volumes pause, but the capacity buffer remains thin enough that rates do not collapse.

A soft market after Golden Week would look different. Rates would slide further and stay down, with carriers failing to refill bellies and freighters in the weeks that follow. That is not the picture reported here.

Why the firmness matters for capacity planning

For airlines, a firm market in mid-October is a useful signal. Cargo capacity on the market is supplied through two channels: belly hold space on passenger aircraft and dedicated freighters (cargo-only aircraft). Passenger belly capacity remains below pre-pandemic levels on many Asia-Europe and trans-Pacific lanes, and freighter operators have been the swing supplier filling the gap.

If demand holds firm into the peak season, carriers with freighter capacity — and freight forwarders who have locked in block space agreements, under which they reserve fixed cargo capacity on defined flights — are positioned to capture the strongest pricing of the year.

For shippers and logistics managers, the practical reading is that the Golden Week dip is likely a short-lived discount rather than a trend. Waiting for further rate declines before booking peak-season capacity carries rising risk if the firmness reported now carries into November.

The season ahead

The next test comes with the peak season build-up. If e-commerce volumes out of Asia keep running at the levels that have supported this year's firm market, the post-Golden Week rate drop will read in retrospect as a brief seasonal correction rather than the start of a downturn. Air Cargo News's assessment keeps the focus on that question as the industry heads into the final quarter.