Air cargo e-commerce shipment volume growth flatlined in July as the European Union’s (EU) new small package import charge took effect.
Speaking at this week’s EU cross-border e-commerce forum in Liege, Ryan Keyrouse, chief executive of consultant and data provider Rotate, examined how e-commerce demand growth had changed over the past two years.
The most recent development, the EU’s introduction of a €3 charge for packages worth less than €150, had seen e-commerce year-on-year volume growth come to a halt as of July 2026.
Indeed, e-commerce demand from China to Europe fell 24% in July to 112,000 tonnes compared with a month earlier.
Keyrouse said that in response to the new EU charge, carriers had reacted by reducing freighter capacity on the China/Hong Kong-Europe trade by around 28% over the same time frame.
Air China Cargo had cut 25 weekly flights to Europe to bring its weekly total to 35 flights per week, China Central Airlines had reduced from 30 to 20 flights per week, SF Express had gone from 20 weekly flights to 10 and CMA CGM had reduced from 12 to three flights, Rotate research showed.
However, the July reduction in flying may also have been influenced by some front-loading ahead of the regulatory change.
Looking at the impact on airports, Keyrouse said that declines are concentrated in e-commerce gateways such as Budapest, Liege, Urumqi and Hong Kong.
Rotate figures show that direct China/Hong Kong to Europe freighter capacity between 1-21 June and 1-21 August fell by 58% to Budapest, 35% to Liege, 28% to Schiphol, 20% to East Midlands, 16% to Frankfurt and 15% to Milan.
On the outbound side, direct European freighter capacity over the period from Urumqi was down 72%, Beijing 43%, Zhengzhou 38%, Ezhou 51%, Chongqing 38% and Hong Kong 28%.
However, Keyrouse pointed out that e-commerce volumes to the US and Brazil have now recovered since they removed their de minimis exemptions for low-value packages in May 2025 and August 2024, respectively.
Meanwhile, e-commerce volumes on a global basis increased by 23% to 295,000 tonnes in July 2026 compared with two years earlier, showing the underlying strength of the vertical.
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