Global Air Cargo Demand Hit a Record High in 2025 — Trackers Split Between 3.1% and 4% Growth
Every major air-cargo tracker agrees 2025 was a record year for global air freight, built on sustained e-commerce demand and mode-shift from ocean to air. But the exact growth rate depends on who is counting and how: IATA's official cargo-tonne-kilometer (CTK) tally shows 3.4% growth, WorldACD and Xeneta's chargeable-weight tonnage figures show 4%, and Cirium's Ascend Consultancy analysis pegs the year closer to 3.1%. The roughly one-point spread traces to methodology — distance-weighted CTK versus flat tonnage — not to disagreement about the underlying trend.
claim: Global air cargo demand grew to a record high in 2025, but independent trackers report different full-year growth rates
Sources · prominence score
Evidence Quality
Tier Mix
Pipeline Warnings
- Unknown source host — defaulted to T? (lowest credibility)CredibilityScorer · iata.org
- Unknown source host — defaulted to T? (lowest credibility)CredibilityScorer · worldacd.com
- Unknown source host — defaulted to T? (lowest credibility)CredibilityScorer · cirium.com
- insufficient_candidatesAlgox:topK · 4/6
Findings
- IATA's official full-year 2025 tally shows global air cargo demand (CTK) up 3.4% year-on-year (4.2% for international operations) -- a record volume -- with capacity (ACTK) up 3.7%.
- Xeneta's independent chargeable-weight tracking shows full-year 2025 growth of 4%, accelerating to 6% year-on-year in December alone as e-commerce and mode-shift demand built into year-end.
- WorldACD Market Data's December 22 report had tonnages on track for 4% full-year growth on top of 2024's record 11% growth, matching Xeneta's figure but built on capacity growth that varied sharply by region -- Africa +18%, Europe +11%, North America +3%.
- Cirium's Ascend Consultancy pegged the year at roughly 3.1% growth in its December analysis, about a full percentage point below the WorldACD/Xeneta tonnage readings, though still far ahead of IATA's original 0.7% forecast for the year.
- All trackers agree on the shape of the year: Asia-Pacific-origin demand outpaced every other region (IATA +8.4% regional demand growth, WorldACD +8% full-year Asia-Pacific origin tonnage growth), while North America was the weakest region, the only one to post a demand decline (-1.3%) per IATA.
- The spread stems largely from methodology rather than raw disagreement: IATA and Cirium report cargo tonne-kilometers (CTK, weighted by distance flown), while WorldACD and Xeneta report chargeable weight/tonnage (unweighted) -- so a record year is universal across trackers, but the exact growth number depends on which yardstick is used.
Airlines, freight forwarders, and air-cargo capacity planners setting a 2026 baseline growth assumption should know the 2025 figure moves by close to a full percentage point (3.1%-4%) depending on whether a tracker weights by distance (CTK) or reports flat chargeable weight; UVRN surfaces that methodological spread instead of anchoring to one number.
- Run ID
- run-142
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