Asia airfreight volumes to the US could partially shift to Europe as a result of changing e-commerce supply chains.
There will be a “significant volume decrease” on the China-US airfreight lane if the US de minimis exemption removal plans are enforced - the plans are temporarily suspended - and Europe is well positioned to absorb these volumes, said Milena Milenkovic, regional airfreight manager, Benelux, Flexport.
She said during a Flexport webinar that consumers will not stop buying products online and e-commerce companies will rethink routes with some volumes potentially shifting to Europe, while manufacturing centres may also move to sidestep the potential ban.
“There is still a lot of capacity on the transpacific... that was shifted there from other parts of the world to satisfy the needs of e-commerce.
“They will probably find other countries to ship from. So all this capacity that will now not be utilised on the China-US lane, it will have to shift somewhere else,” Milenkovic said during the ‘Scenario Planning: 3 Developments Shaping The Freight Market’ webinar.
“If the US is not going to be the main buyer at this point, the next areas where the volumes could go could be Europe,” she further explained.
“It could potentially mean that some airfreight volume could be shifted into Europe.”
Like the US, Europe has also been expanding in e-commerce.
"We know that there are some European airports that are acting as a big hub for e-commerce right now,” said Milenkovic.
“That’s why I think we might see a growth in volumes towards Europe. Of course not in equal measure (to Asia-US), but it might happen.”
Sanne Manders, president, Flexport, added that e-commerce companies might refocus on Latin America, Africa and Europe “so a lot of the airfreight capacity will move there”.
Looking at the medium- to long-term impact of wider US tariffs, Milenkovic pointed to supply chains diversifying away from China to elsewhere in Asia, with nearshoring and reshoring investments.
E-commerce players are adapting by storing major products in US warehouses and shifting manufacturing from China to countries including Brazil, Turkey, India, Vietnam and Mexico, while also seeking out local US manufacturers and sellers to sell to US consumers.
“It is inevitable that there will be a significant volume decrease on the China-US lane for airfreight” because if shipping transitions to within the US then “there will be no need to airfreight these products anymore from China to the US”, reiterated Milenkovic.
Sanne pointed out that de minimis doesn’t only impact Chinese e-commerce companies, but also US and European companies with Chinese products in their supply chain.
“They source in China. They have the fulfilment centre in China and they supply their customers directly from those fulfilment centres.”
He added: "The rules (apply to) the country of origin. Those companies will have to rethink their supply chain or go through domestic fulfilment and build those capabilities in North America.”
He said e-commerce companies have the option of changing the country of origin or going to domestic fulfilment - import into the US and then distributing from there.
However, Milenkovic said that while there will be higher costs and longer shipment processing times for China-US goods, there is still locked-in airfreight capacity to consider.
This means that companies will still ship from China to the US because contracts are in place for high-value, vital products.
Data analyst Rotate recently suggested that the industry needs more data to assess the exact impact of e-commerce changes.
Source: https://www.aircargonews.net/e-commerce-logistics/asia-e-commerce-volumes-could-shift-from-us-to-europe/1079668.article
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