A natural question pops up, especially for the container shipping, as to how much of the cargo bound for the Middle East has now been forced to move into Air Freight from Sea Freight. If the Hormuz’s fate remains uncertain, that trend may well move from being a short-term challenge to a long-term shift.
The honest answer is the sea-to-air modal shift is real but structurally constrained — and air freight itself is under pressure.
Scale of the maritime collapse
Ship transits through the Strait dropped from around 130 per day in February to just 6 in March — a collapse of roughly 95% (Source: UNCTAD). Data shows daily ocean freight diversions surged over 360%, rising from 218 to 1,010 per day, with a single-day peak of 2,363 diversions on March 5 (Source: Project44). This is the baseline from which any modal shift to air must be understood.
The air freight surge — what the data shows
Air freight rates surged sharply, with South Asia to North America up 58% and Europe to the Middle East up 55% (Source: Windward). For India specifically, the numbers are more severe: air cargo rates on India-Middle East routes surged 250–300%, with freighter capacity out of Indian airports booked out several weeks ahead (Source: Marine Gateway)
Data from the Freightos Air Index shows rates between South Asia and North America and Europe increased by around 50%, reaching approximately $6.00/kg and $4.00/kg respectively, while Southeast Asia to Europe rose 20% to above $4.00/kg.
Which commodities shifted to Air
The modal shift is commodity-specific and driven by value density and time-sensitivity. The categories actively moving sea-to-air are:
- Pharmaceuticals & APIs — pharmaceutical exports from India and semiconductors from Asia face significant delays as air cargo hubs across the UAE and Qatar are disrupted, pushing shippers to reroute via surviving air corridors.
- Semiconductors & electronics — semiconductor and electronics supply chains rely on predictable air transport to secure high-value inventory and tight production cycles, with higher surcharges immediately increasing landed costs per wafer or module.
- Medical devices & biologics — temperature-sensitive biologics heading into European hospital systems are particularly exposed when Gulf air hubs go down.
- Perishables and time-sensitive manufactured goods — air freight is being used for time-sensitive manufactured goods, pharmaceuticals, perishables, and high-value items where supply continuity justifies the cost.
What is not shifting to air: bulk commodities (crude, LNG, fertilizers, grains, metals) — these are physically and economically impossible to airfreight at any meaningful volume.
The structural constraint: Air Capacity itself is collapsing
This is the critical complication. Airspace closures over the UAE, Qatar, and several neighboring nations have eliminated belly capacity — the cargo space in passenger planes — that global trade relies on. Global air cargo capacity has fallen by nearly 20%, with specific corridors seeing a 26% reduction. This may well come back if the airlines resume normal passenger services. However, with the collapsed peace talks, things may heat up once again in the region.
Jet fuel reached $3.93 per gallon on 17 March versus $2.50 before hostilities began, feeding directly into air cargo rate adjustments on Asia-Europe and other long-haul lanes.
So the crisis is simultaneously creating demand for air freight as a sea substitute while destroying air freight capacity — a classic supply-demand squeeze that explains the extreme rate spikes.
The emerging hybrid: sea-air bridges
When ocean freight is too slow and pure air freight is too expensive, logistics operators are pivoting to multi-modal solutions — shipping via sea to a stable secondary port and then transferring to air freight, bypassing the Strait while beating Cape of Good Hope transit times. Ports like Salalah, Sohar, and Mundra are emerging as the sea-to-air interchange nodes.
Bottom line
There is no granular TEU-equivalent figure for total sea-to-air volume shift — the disruption is too acute and the data too fragmented for that precision. What is clear is that the shift is real but selective: high-value, time-sensitive cargo (pharma, semiconductors, med-tech, perishables) is moving to air at significant premium, while bulk commodities have no viable air alternative and are instead sitting in anchorages, rerouting via Cape, or flowing through bilaterally-negotiated passage arrangements. The air freight market itself is under simultaneous strain, making the shift costlier and capacity-constrained — not a clean escape valve.