The traditional peak season had a familiar pattern. Demand rises, networks tighten, rates climb, and eventually the pressure eases as additional capacity enters the market and cargo volumes moderate.
None of that has manifested with the early freight peak in 2026, which is likely to stay through the summer.
«For shippers, the second half of 2026 may be less about waiting for normality to return and more about adapting to a market where pressure has become the norm,» said Niki Frank, CEO, DHL Global Forwarding Asia Pacific.
Across both ocean and air freight, demand continues to outpace available capacity, keeping rates elevated and space constrained despite the arrival of new vessels and aircraft.
While the drivers differ by mode, the message from both markets is strikingly similar: supply chains remain under pressure, and shippers should prepare for challenging conditions to persist in the months ahead.
A demanding market
Freight networks entered the second half of the year with considerable momentum, with Asia remaining at the center of this demand story.
In ocean freight, container demand has expanded on the back of strong exports from Asia, and holiday inventory replenishment. Growing volumes linked to manufacturing output, technology exports, solar components, battery storage systems, and electric vehicle-related cargo are all contributing to freight flows across key trade lanes.
Air cargo is experiencing a similarly strong year. Global air freight volumes rose 9 percent year over year in June and are up 5 percent year to date, supported by Asia manufacturing activity and continued demand for semiconductors, AI-related products, data center infrastructure, and other high-value technology shipments.
What is noteworthy is that strong demand across both modes has persisted against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, shifting trade policies, and ongoing disruptions to global transportation networks.
As a result, capacity remains under pressure even as carriers continue bringing new assets into service.
Figuring out the capacity puzzle
At first glance, the ocean freight market should be loosening, as the global container fleet is expanding. Yet many shippers are discovering that more assets on paper do not necessarily translate into more space in practice.
More than 3.7 million TEU are currently tied up in congested ports globally, bringing congestion levels back to the post-pandemic disruptions of 2022. Typhoons disrupting operations at several Chinese ports and strong export demand creating bottlenecks across Asia have made the congestion effect heavily felt in North Asia.
DHL’s monthly Ocean Freight Market Update noted that congestion continues to remove effective supply from the market and that vessel slot availability remains under pressure even as fleet capacity expands. Its congestion monitoring similarly shows significant volumes tied up at anchorages across major gateways including Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Singapore, Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Busan.
