The world’s largest cargo airlines continued to outperform the wider airfreight market in 2025, but the latest rankings reveal significant changes beneath the headline growth.
According to Air Cargo News’ Top 25 Cargo Airlines analysis, the leading 25 carriers recorded combined cargo traffic growth of 5.5%, compared with 3.4% across the global market. Performance, however, varied sharply between airlines, regions and trade lanes.
FedEx retained first place with 16.3bn cargo tonne-kilometres (CTK), despite a 9.9% year-on-year decline. UPS narrowed the gap, growing 7.2% to 16.1bn CTK, while Qatar Airways Cargo moved into third place after volumes fell 5% to 14.4bn CTK.
Asia becomes the market’s main growth engine
The most important development was geographical.
Asia-Pacific airlines recorded demand growth of 8.4%, while North American carriers declined by 1.3%. Europe-Asia traffic increased by 10.3%, compared with a 0.8% contraction on Asia-North America routes.
Changing tariffs, customs policies, manufacturing patterns and the removal of US de minimis exemptions contributed to the shift. China-US e-commerce flows came under pressure, while Europe-Asia, intra-Asian and Southeast Asian markets gained importance.
Air China reflected this change particularly clearly, increasing CTK by 23.4% to 9.1bn and moving three places higher in the ranking.
Scale alone no longer guarantees growth
The figures show that airline size remains important, but network flexibility is becoming equally decisive.
Carriers able to redirect aircraft, combine freighter and belly capacity, develop specialised products and respond quickly to new demand corridors were better positioned to capture growth. At the same time, leading express operators continued to prioritise higher-value shipments, healthcare, technology and time-critical cargo over volume alone.
For freight forwarders, this means that last year’s strongest carrier or routing may not be the most competitive option today. Capacity, pricing and service reliability can change rapidly as airlines rebalance their networks.
What this means for NAP members
The changing rankings reinforce the value of maintaining diversified airline relationships and strong partners across multiple markets.
NAP members should closely monitor capacity developments between Asia and Europe, within Asia, and across emerging production centres in Southeast Asia. Combining local market intelligence from trusted partners with access to a broader airline portfolio can help identify alternative gateways before congestion and rate pressure intensify.
The shift towards higher-value and specialised cargo also creates opportunities for forwarders with expertise in time-critical, pharmaceutical, perishable, high-tech and e-commerce logistics. These are sectors where operational knowledge, local control and reliable execution can carry more weight than scale alone.
For the Neutral Air Partner community, the message is straightforward: in a market where trade flows can change faster than annual rankings, competitive strength comes from connectivity, specialisation and the ability to respond collectively.
Source: Air Cargo News: Top 25 Cargo Airlines 2025 – A Year of Instability
