The News
Kuehne+Nagel’s air freight volume rose 10% year over year to 619,000 metric tons in Q3 2026, the Swiss forwarder said in its Q3 results, naming cloud infrastructure and semiconductor customers as “a key growth driver.” Volume growth was 3% in Q2.
“We have just started in the peak season, but I would say it’s strong,” CEO Stefan Paul said on the earnings call. “Is it even stronger than the Q3? Wait to be seen, but it’s definitely strong.”
Air net turnover rose 38% to CHF 2.4 billion, about $2.9 billion. Air EBIT rose 84% to CHF 169 million. Gross profit per 100 kilograms rose to CHF 84 from CHF 72 a year earlier, according to the analyst presentation.
The details
The air market grew far more slowly than Kuehne+Nagel did. Paul put the market’s growth at 3% to 4% and said the rest came from winning business away from other forwarders.
“I would say 3%, 4% is the market and 6%, 7% is our market share gains,” Paul said when Deutsche Bank analyst Jaime Rowbotham asked him to split the 10%. Share gains should continue in 2027, “similar to this year,” he said.
Hard cargo volume rose by double digits in the quarter while e-commerce “went down significantly,” Paul said.
DSV handled 560,890 metric tons in Q3, down 3% year over year, Air Cargo News reported.
Tech freight has taken the place autos used to hold in the forwarder’s air business. Cloud companies are a good part of it, its CFO said. Kuehne+Nagel also signed a long-term deal with Amazon in September that covers equipment for AWS data centers.
Tech “has replaced the shrinking auto sector on a one-to-one basis,” Paul told analysts, according to The Loadstar.
“I can certainly confirm the hyperscaler is a good part of our growth in 2026,” CFO Markus Blanka-Graff said. He expects that growth to continue into 2027 and declined to name customers or give percentages.
The Amazon deal covers construction, equipment deployment, maintenance and expansion work for AWS data centers. Amazon gets an option on Kuehne+Nagel shares that vests over up to seven years as commercial milestones are met.
“What we see is there is demand forecast secured for the next three years,” Paul told Bloomberg in September, adding that “there is still double-digit growth to be expected.”
The same pull shows up in US import data. US air imports by weight set a record in August, led by computer parts and memory, and some of the largest AI shippers still had not booked their peak space by mid-October.
August air imports rose 20% year over year and ran 42% above the 2023 average, by supply chain professor Jason Miller’s seasonally adjusted reading of Census Bureau data, according to The Loadstar.
Computer parts, including GPUs, added 12,932 metric tons over August last year. Unrecorded media, including memory, added 11,111 metric tons.
E-commerce and product launch shippers had secured peak space while some AI hyperscalers had not, TAC Index sources told The Loadstar.
Air spot rates ran about a quarter above last year in mid-October, by the TAC Baltic Air Freight Index. Kuehne+Nagel expects its own margin per kilogram to hold through the peak, with half its capacity on freighters it charters.
“We expect a very similar and stable yield going forward,” Blanka-Graff said. Yield is the forwarder’s gross profit per kilogram, so it sits on top of the airline rate and fuel.
“We have 50% our own charter capacity, the rest is block space agreement,” Paul said.
The TAC Baltic Air Freight Index ran 24.3% above a year earlier in mid-October, according to The Loadstar. Jet fuel was up 111.2% year over year, by IATA’s count.
My notes
Most of the growth came from rivals. By Paul’s own split, the market accounted for 3 or 4 points of the 10% and share gains for 6 or 7. DSV's air volume fell 3% in the same quarter.
Half its air capacity is chartered. Paul said 50% of Kuehne+Nagel's capacity is its own charter capacity and the rest is block space agreements.
Tech freight has replaced autos. Paul said tech replaced the shrinking auto sector on a one-to-one basis.
Peak space is tight for late bookers. E-commerce and product launch shippers secured peak space early while some AI hyperscalers had not, with the TAC index up about a quarter and jet fuel more than double a year ago.
Kuehne+Nagel won’t say how much is Amazon. Blanka-Graff declined to name customers or give percentages.
“Stable yields” refers to the forwarder’s margin per kilo. The shipper’s all-in rate still moves with fuel and the airline rate under it.
What’s next
Paul expects Q3’s volume trend to carry into Q4 with stable yields. More US freighter lift arrives this week, as Qatar Airways Cargo starts a weekly Warsaw-Chicago 777 freighter on Oct 26 and a weekly New York and Atlanta rotation on Nov 1, according to The Loadstar.
