How Asia's supply chain shift is redrawing the air cargo map

For decades, the logic of global manufacturing was simple: go to China. The combination of low labour costs, deep supplier networks, and infrastructure built to industrial scale made it the default answer for companies assembling everything from smartphones to server racks. That logic has not collapsed, but it has cracked. The tariff campaigns of the Trump administration, compounded by pandemic-era supply chain failures and a broader Western push to reduce strategic dependence on a single country, have set in motion a diversification that is now showing up in hard data, none more striking than the air cargo numbers coming out of Q1 2026.

According to recent data from Aevean, US high-tech air imports grew 57% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, with total volume rising by 157,000 tonnes. But the story inside that headline figure is where the map changes. Taiwan led the surge with an 83,000-tonne increase, a 276% year-on-year jump. Vietnam added 36,000 tonnes, up 110%. Thailand contributed 34,000 tonnes, a 223% rise. Malaysia added 9,000 tonnes, up 86%. China, by contrast, dropped 35,000 tonnes, a contraction of 32%. David de Jong, Strategy Manager Consulting at Aevean, frames the significance clearly: "High tech is a key propellant of air cargo in general, with substantial additional volumes — indeed, equivalent to 16 extra daily widebody freighter flights — on the transpacific eastbound in Q1 2026."

The China-plus-X turn
The industry shorthand for the earlier phase of this transition was "China Plus One", a strategy where multinationals kept their China operations intact but added a single backup facility elsewhere. That model has given way to something more distributed. Surveys of corporate procurement and operations teams suggest that 60% of companies are now moving toward what practitioners are calling "China Plus X", diversifying production across multiple Asian countries rather than committing to any single alternative. The goal is not to decouple from China, which remains deeply embedded in global supply chains as both manufacturer and consumer market, but to reduce the concentration risk that became painfully visible during 2020 and 2021.

Fabio Weiss, Senior Vice President and Head of Airfreight at DHL Global Forwarding Asia Pacific, describes what this means structurally: "Supply chains are no longer built around a single hub but engineered for optionality and resilience." That engineering is now visible in cargo data. According to DHL's Air Freight Market Update for April 2026, year-on-year demand for air cargo was up 14% earlier in Q1, even as volatility persisted. Intra-Asia air cargo volumes grew around 7% year-on-year in the same period, reflecting the rising importance of regional connectivity as intermediate goods move between multiple manufacturing locations before final export.

The key drivers for growth in Southeast Asia in Q1 for the US were mainly due to server-related commodities.
David de Jong, Aevean

Andrew Chen, Country Manager at Dimerco Vietnam, points to the operational reality behind these numbers: "It's definitely one of the biggest drivers for air freight in the region right now. When manufacturers decide to set up new facilities in places like Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, or India, due to most materials or parts relying on China and Taiwan, they can't afford delays. Getting a new plant online requires moving highly sensitive manufacturing machinery, spare parts, and initial raw materials as fast as possible, which relies heavily on air freight."

The commodities driving growth
The product breakdown of US-bound high-tech air imports reveals the precise nature of this shift. Computers lead at 97,500 tonnes. Computer accessories followed at 32,100 tonnes. Telecom equipment reached 30,300 tonnes. Laptops and tablets added 25,700 tonnes.

De Jong identifies the commodity-level drivers with precision: "The key drivers of growth in Southeast Asia’s Q1 exports to the US were primarily server-related commodities.. More China Plus One-related commodities such as desktop computers recorded a more modest shift from China to other Southeast Asian countries." On the durability of the trend, his assessment is direct: "We believe the high-tech air exports from Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand are structural and will continue to show substantial mid-term growth."

Taiwan sits at the centre of this story. Chen explains the supply chain logic: "What we are seeing on the ground is a very clear supply chain flow: critical components, especially memory products, are being flown in from South Korea to Taiwan. Once assembled into finished AI equipment here, we see a massive surge in outbound air freight directly to the US market. The scale of these AI-related exports has been so strong that it recently helped push Taiwan to a record-high single-quarter GDP growth of 13.69%."

Supply chains are no longer built around a single hub but engineered for optionality and resilience.
Fabio Weiss, DHL Global Forwarding

Vietnam, Thailand, and the Southeast Asia surge
Vietnam's electronics and computer exports surged nearly 50% in 2025, cementing its position in the global tech supply chain. Thailand's export recovery has been driven by a rebound in electronics and machinery. Malaysia's exports strengthened, led by a 25.3% surge in electrical and electronic shipments. Each country is absorbing a different slice of the production that once concentrated in China, and each is generating a different cargo profile.

Chen notes a pattern that is building additional freight volume on top of the direct export flows: "Following the AI server wave, more and more suppliers in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore hugely increase the supply of parts into Taiwan, with a 30 to 40% increment year-on-year." This creates a two-directional flow: components moving from Southeast Asia to Taiwan for assembly, and finished AI equipment moving from Taiwan to the United States.

Weiss observed the infrastructure consequence: "We are seeing greater deployment flexibility as carriers shift capacity swiftly to meet the demands of emerging lanes, alongside a clear expansion of secondary city and point-to-point connections." The multimodal dimension is also growing. Chen describes the model Dimerco is deploying: "We are also seeing a huge increase in demand for multimodal solutions, like cross-border trucking door-to-door service from South China with air freight out of hubs in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. It gives customers the speed they need without relying entirely on direct flights."

There is a clear and gradual increase in freighter capacity being directed into India.
Ramanathan Rajamani, AISATS

India: Infrastructure catches up with ambition
India's engineering exports reached a record $116.67 billion in the fiscal year 2024–25, and the trajectory of its air cargo infrastructure is beginning to match the scale of its manufacturing ambitions. Ramanathan Rajamani, CEO of Air India Sats Airport Private Limited (AISATS), describes a shift in the nature of what India's cargo ecosystem is being asked to do: "As India strengthens its position as a global manufacturing and export hub, cargo infrastructure is evolving from being capacity-driven to capability-driven, focused not just on volume handling but on speed, reliability, specialisation, and digital integration."

Even after these new factories are running, their supply chains remain closely linked to China.
Andrew Chen, Dimerco

The forwarder as strategist
The operational complexity of managing cargo across multiple origin countries, each with different regulatory environments, infrastructure maturity levels, and carrier networks, has changed the function that freight forwarders perform. Chen is direct about the transformation: "The role of a freight forwarder is no longer just about moving cargo from point A to point B; we have essentially transitioned into supply chain strategic consultants. Our customers now expect us to help them navigate a minefield of tariff risks, trade compliance, export controls, sanctions, and geopolitical uncertainties. Forwarders who can seamlessly combine traditional logistics expertise with proactive risk management and regulatory knowledge will hold the most critical competitive differentiator in the market."

Weiss frames the customer calculus in similar terms: "Resilience is no longer seen as a cost burden but as a key enabler of long-term efficiency and competitiveness in a more complex supply chain landscape. The question is no longer cost versus resilience but how to optimise both simultaneously."

The shift is not complete, and it is not irreversible. China's logistics infrastructure, manufacturing depth, and domestic market scale ensure it remains central to global supply chains. But the direction of travel in the data from Q1 2026 is unambiguous. Asia's air cargo map is being redrawn, one freighter flight at a time, by decisions made in corporate boardrooms that have concluded the risks of concentration are no longer worth the efficiencies it once delivered.