For decades, peak season airfreight in Southeast Asia followed a rhythm that supply chain teams could plan around with reasonable confidence. Demand would rise steadily from early September, intensify through the fourth quarter, and then ease as year-end inventories were drawn down. That rhythm offered predictability, even when rates increased and capacity tightened.
What has become clear over the past two years is that this pattern no longer holds reliably. Data from 2024 and 2025 shows that airfreight demand across Southeast Asia is remaining elevated well beyond traditional peak windows. In many trade lanes, volumes have stayed strong into November and December, and in some cases carried through into the first quarter with little sign of meaningful softening.
This shift has reshaped the challenge facing business owners and supply chain managers. Peak season planning is no longer about preparing for a short-lived surge. It is about managing prolonged periods of tight capacity, rate volatility, and limited predictability, often with very little warning.
Southeast Asia offers a particularly instructive lens for understanding this change. Vietnam, Thailand, and Bangladesh each illustrate different responses to sustained demand pressure, shaped by infrastructure, market maturity, and access to capacity. Together, they reveal how airfreight capacity management is evolving and what shippers must now do differently.
When Peak Season Becomes Persistent
Several structural forces have converged to blur the boundaries between peak and off-peak airfreight demand. E-commerce fulfilment has accelerated, particularly for cross-border shipments tied to promotional cycles rather than traditional retail calendars. Semiconductor and high-tech exports, including AI-related hardware, have increased both volume and urgency. At the same time, tariff uncertainty has encouraged frontloading, pushing shippers to move inventory earlier and more frequently.
The result is a market where demand does not neatly crest and recede. Instead, capacity remains under pressure for extended periods, especially on Southeast Asia to North America and Europe lanes. In early 2025, year-on-year demand growth on some of these routes exceeded 50 percent, far outpacing the pace at which new capacity could be added.
For shippers, this means that familiar planning assumptions no longer apply. Waiting for post-peak relief can now be a costly strategy, as rates and space constraints persist longer than expected.
Vietnam: Securing Capacity Early Is the Only Reliable Strategy
Vietnam’s airfreight market highlights how early commitment has become central to successful peak season execution. Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi continue to serve as major export gateways for electronics, apparel, and increasingly high-value technology shipments destined for North America and Europe.
During peak demand periods in 2024 and early 2025, shippers that successfully moved cargo typically secured space two to four weeks in advance. Block space agreements with Vietnam Airlines and selected international carriers proved decisive once weekly allocations began filling up. As demand intensified, rates on Vietnam to US lanes regularly increased by 30 to 50 percent, with additional premiums applied for late bookings requiring guaranteed uplift.
Forwarders also adapted by introducing secondary routings through Chinese hubs such as Shanghai. While this added complexity and handling time, it helped mitigate the risk of rollovers during weeks when primary gateways were heavily congested. For many shippers, reliability became more important than speed or simplicity.
Vietnam’s experience reinforces a critical lesson. In a sustained high-demand environment, access to space depends far less on negotiating leverage and far more on the timing and credibility of commitments.
Thailand: Flexibility as a Competitive Advantage
Thailand presents a contrasting but equally instructive model. Bangkok’s role as a regional air cargo hub provides access to a wide range of carriers and routings, allowing shippers to adapt dynamically as conditions change.
Rather than committing all volume to a single lane or carrier, Thai exporters often distribute shipments across multiple routings. Transit points are adjusted based on available capacity, pricing, and service reliability. This flexibility has proven particularly valuable during e-commerce surges, where demand can spike quickly and then shift just as fast.
Charter operations are also used more actively in Thailand to supplement commercial capacity during periods of intense demand. As a result, while long-haul rates do rise during peak windows, intra-Asia pricing often remains comparatively stable. In many cases, rates within the region stay below USD 2 per kilo even when other markets tighten significantly.
Thailand’s experience demonstrates how routing optionality and operational flexibility can offset some of the pressure created by sustained demand, even when overall capacity remains constrained.
Bangladesh: Volatility and the Cost of Limited Resilience
Bangladesh offers a starkly different perspective on peak season capacity management. Structural limitations, combined with recurring disruptions, make longterm planning significantly more difficult than in neighbouring markets.
Political unrest, weather events, and airport congestion have repeatedly constrained capacity at Dhaka. In mid-2024, these factors coincided with global peak demand, driving spot rates up by more than 160 percent year on year. While conditions improved somewhat into 2025, rates remained elevated during high-demand periods, particularly in the weeks leading up to year-end holidays.
When airfreight from Dhaka becomes unreliable or prohibitively expensive, shippers often resort to trucking cargo to Indian gateways such as Kolkata or Delhi. This approach adds both cost and transit time, but it provides access to larger capacity pools and more predictable uplift.
Bangladesh’s reliance on ad-hoc bookings during peak periods highlights how quickly markets without diversified gateways or resilient infrastructure can become exposed to extreme rate volatility. It also underscores the importance of contingency planning in environments where disruption is not an exception but a recurring condition.
Why Average Rates No Longer Tell the Full Story
One of the most persistent challenges in peak season planning is the continued reliance on average market rates. While averages offer a useful reference point, they often mask the sharp swings that define high-demand periods.
Data from indices such as TAC Index and WorldACD shows that rates on key Southeast Asia lanes can move by 15 to 50 percent within relatively short timeframes. Contract rates, though valuable for budgeting, frequently fail to secure space during the most constrained weeks, particularly for lower-yield cargo.
As a result, carriers increasingly allocate space based on yield and urgency rather than contractual commitments alone. Time-critical shipments, e-commerce parcels, and high-value goods are prioritised, leaving other cargo exposed to rollovers or premium pricing.
For many shippers, this has shifted the focus from achieving the lowest possible rate to ensuring consistent access to uplift.
What Actually Works When Capacity Tightens
Across Vietnam, Thailand, and Bangladesh, certain capacity management tactics have consistently proven more effective during high-demand periods.
Block space agreements remain one of the most reliable tools where they are available, particularly when paired with realistic volume forecasts and disciplined execution. While they require upfront commitment, they offer predictability in markets where spot availability can disappear quickly.
Charters continue to play an important role in absorbing short-term demand spikes, especially in e-commerce-heavy lanes. Although expensive, they provide guaranteed capacity when commercial options are exhausted.
Carrier partnerships add another layer of resilience, offering access to dedicated uplift when belly capacity tightens. At the same time, predictive analytics and real-time market data have improved supply-demand matching by several percentage points, helping forwarders and shippers make more informed booking decisions under pressure.
Technology as a Core Capability
Technology has moved from the back office to the centre of peak season airfreight decision-making. Real-time visibility into rates, capacity, and lane congestion now plays a critical role in planning and execution.
Forwarders increasingly rely on market data to anticipate bottlenecks, pre-position inventory, and adjust routings before conditions deteriorate. This capability has been particularly valuable in volatile markets such as Bangladesh, where disruptions can escalate rapidly.
The ability to respond in near real time is no longer a differentiator. It is fast becoming a baseline requirement for effective capacity management.
Lessons from Three Very Different Markets
Taken together, Vietnam, Thailand, and Bangladesh illustrate three distinct approaches to managing airfreight capacity during sustained peak demand.
Vietnam demonstrates the value of early and credible commitment. Thailand shows how flexibility and routing diversity can reduce exposure to rate shocks. Bangladesh highlights the risks that emerge when capacity planning is constrained by infrastructure limitations and external disruptions.
What connects all three markets is the growing importance of planning for prolonged tightness rather than short-lived peaks.
What This Means for Supply Chain Leaders in 2025 and Beyond
Global air cargo volumes are expected to grow by 8 to 11 percent, and pressure on Southeast Asia’s airfreight capacity is unlikely to ease. On key lanes, peak-period rates are likely to remain 15 to 50 percent higher than off-peak levels, particularly where e-commerce demand dominates.
For business owners and supply chain managers, the implications are clear. Peak season planning must begin earlier, routing strategies must be more diversified, and decision-making must be grounded in timely data rather than historical averages. Those who adapt their strategies to this reality will be better positioned to manage both cost and reliability in an increasingly complex logistics environment.