Container and Air Freight Market Update, Early October 2026

As of 6 October 2026, the container market has split in two. Spot rates from Asia into the US are at or near their highest for the year, while rates from Asia to Europe are still falling, and China's Golden Week holiday has arrived on top of port congestion that one measure puts at about 12% of global ship capacity. Three other things moved since our 25 September Hormuz and Red Sea update and our September market update: the US and China extended their trade truce but left a gap over US port fees on Chinese ships, tanker attacks continued in the Strait of Hormuz even as Gulf oil exports recovered, and air cargo demand kept growing at a modest pace. This is a dated snapshot, and every figure below is tied to the source and date that published it.

What changed since the 25 September updates

• Rates diverged. Drewry, Xeneta and Freightos all show US-bound spot rates flat to higher and Europe-bound rates lower in their latest readings (1 October, 2 October and 30 September respectively).
• Golden Week met congestion. Carriers have blanked sailings around the holiday, and C.H. Robinson's October report puts congestion at about 12% of global container capacity.
• US port fees are unresolved on paper. The announced truce extension runs to 10 January 2027, but the suspension of Section 301 ship fees still ends on 9 November 2026 unless USTR publishes a new notice.
• Hormuz attacks continued while Kpler data showed Gulf oil exports back at pre-war levels on about half of September's days.
• Air cargo kept growing year on year, with shippers moving to shorter contracts.

Spot container rates: US-bound firm, Europe-bound still falling

The three main weekly spot indices were published on different days and measure different things, so they should be read side by side rather than compared number for number. The table gives each reading with the publisher's own stated weekly change. For how each index is built and why they differ, see our guide to container freight indices (SCFI, WCI and FBX).

Drewry said the WCI fell because of lower Asia to Europe rates, and that increasing Suez Canal transits "are adding effective capacity" to that trade. Xeneta's chief analyst Peter Sand said the market "has reached its post-Hormuz crisis peak in 2026", pointing to easing port congestion after the typhoon season and the Golden Week drop in Chinese exports. That is an analyst's assessment, not a settled fact; the next few weekly prints are what will test it. Xeneta also reported its US West Coast and East Coast spot rates at 344% and 335% above its pre-Hormuz-crisis baseline of 28 February. Freightos described its West Coast reading as a high for the year.

The Shanghai Shipping Exchange publishes the SCFI each Friday. We could not reach the exchange's own page this week, so this update quotes no SCFI figure. Read the latest print directly from the exchange before using it in a rate comparison.

Notice how far apart the New York and East Coast lines sit across providers: roughly $9,600 (Freightos), $10,428 (Drewry, Shanghai origin) and $11,523 (Xeneta, Far East origin). They are not in conflict. Each uses its own origin basket, data source and timing, which is why a quote should say which index or basis it is being compared with.

Golden Week, blank sailings and port congestion

China's Golden Week holiday is reported to run 1 to 7 October, with some carrier schedules cancelling sailings into the week after. Drewry's 1 October commentary said that "factories across China will remain shut during Golden Week, reducing cargo volumes", and that according to its Container Capacity Insight, 10 blank sailings had been announced for the following week, down from 13 the week before. Drewry also said carriers "are attempting to reverse the downward trend by introducing higher FAK rates in the second half of October". An attempt is not an outcome: whether a general rate increase sticks depends on demand after the holiday, which has not been published yet. For the wider peak-season background, see our piece on the 2026 double peak.

The unusual part this year is that the holiday lull is landing on a congested network. Two measurements published in the last week differ because they use different methods:

• C.H. Robinson's October Edge Report, reported by gCaptain on 2 October, puts about 12% of global container ship capacity absorbed by port congestion, which it described as the highest in four years. Affected regions named were East Asia, Northern Europe and the Indian Subcontinent, with Colombo called out.
• Sea-Intelligence, as quoted in Freightos's 30 September update, put the figure at more than 8% of global capacity.

Both say the same thing in different units: a meaningful share of the world's container ships is waiting rather than carrying cargo, which keeps effective capacity tight even when blank sailings thin the schedule. The C.H. Robinson report said capacity "may exist in the ocean network", but congestion and carriers' schedule recovery steps change where and when it is actually available.

One easing signal elsewhere: on 28 September the Panama Canal Authority raised the maximum Neopanamax draft to 49 feet with immediate effect, and said Neopanamax transits would rise from 9 to 10 a day from 15 October, citing near-average rainfall and its water-saving measures. Reporting by Maritime Executive on that announcement notes that vessels without Transit Reservation System bookings can still face long delays. Our earlier September update recorded the tighter slot count from mid-September.

The US-China truce and the port fee gap

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two countries had agreed to extend the "Busan Agreement" trade truce, which had been due to expire on 10 November, by two months to 10 January 2027 (as quoted by FreightWaves). Freightos's 30 September update summarised the Trump and Xi meeting as including mutual tariff reductions on some goods, and said the extension "likely also postpones" US port call fees on China-linked vessels.

The word that matters is "likely". The US fees on Chinese-operated, Chinese-owned and Chinese-built vessels were suspended by a Federal Register notice from USTR for one year, from 10 November 2025 through 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on 9 November 2026. Under US administrative law, that kind of notice is changed by another notice. Tech Times reported on 29 September that no such notice had yet been published, FreightWaves reported that the truce announcement itself did not mention the ship fees, and Freightos said on 30 September that USTR "has not issued an official deferral". USTR's press release listing, as we checked it on 6 October, showed no release on the fees. We have not found a new Federal Register notice either. According to FreightWaves, more than 200 maritime stakeholders have urged USTR to align the suspension with the extended truce.

So the position on 6 October is: a diplomatic extension has been announced, the legal suspension on paper still ends on 9 November, and the gap is unresolved. We are not predicting which way it closes. For shippers and forwarders the practical point is contractual: check whether any quote or service contract has a clause for government-imposed port fees, and from which date it would apply.

Hormuz and the Red Sea since the late September update

Our 25 September update covered transit counts to 23 September. Since then the picture has two parts that do not obviously agree.

Oil exports recovered while attacks continued. NBC News and Al Jazeera, both on 5 October, reported Kpler ship-tracking data showing Gulf oil exports above pre-war levels on about half of September's days, with pre-war crude exports averaging about 18 million barrels a day. Both also reported UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) logging at least one attack a day since 2 October, including strikes on the tankers Lipsi and Kazimah III. Al Jazeera quoted an IRGC commander saying only three to four million barrels a day were moving through the route, a claim that sits against the Kpler figures and that we cannot reconcile. NBC reported that Saudi Arabia has been loading tankers from both Red Sea and Gulf terminals, which suggests some of the export recovery may not pass through the strait at all.

Almost all of the measurable data is about tankers, not boxships. For containers, Drewry's 1 October note says only that "disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz also continue to affect shipping operations". Anyone with cargo to or from the Gulf should ask the forwarder or line for the current routing and any transhipment change in writing, and not assume the route is unchanged.

The Red Sea is moving but not settled. Drewry said on 1 October that increasing Suez transits are adding capacity to the Asia to Europe trade "while uncertainty around Houthi activity remains". CBS News's live updates for 5 and 6 October reported that Yemen's Saudi-backed government claimed to have retaken control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a claim that Houthi-aligned media disputed, and that the Houthis had made territorial gains along the Red Sea coast the previous month. The same report said a Houthi coordination body warned airlines that Saudi airspace would be "a theater for operations". Treat the control claims as unconfirmed. The network effects of the Cape and Suez choices are explained in our Red Sea and Cape routing piece, and the carrier lineup behind those choices in our alliances overview.

Air cargo: growth continues, contracts get shorter

Four sources published in the last week, each measuring something slightly different:

• IATA, 29 September (August data): industry cargo tonne-kilometres rose 4.4% year on year, international 5.3%, while capacity was down 0.1%, lifting the global load factor 2.0 points to 46.0%. Asia to North America was the strongest major corridor at 13.2%. IATA chief economist Marie Owens Thomsen said demand rose "with all regions reporting growth even as capacity was trimmed".
• Xeneta, early October (September data): volumes up 6% year on year and spot rates averaging 27% above September 2025, up 2% month on month. Its chief airfreight officer Niall van de Wouw said instability was "making it almost impossible for shippers to make long-term capacity deals without having T&Cs in place". Xeneta reported short-term agreements of three months or less at 60% of new contracts, against 25% a year earlier, and shippers asking for "floating mechanisms" with a base rate that adjusts.
• Weekly air cargo trends report for 21 to 27 September, as republished by AJOT: global chargeable weight down 4% on the previous week but up 5% year on year. The report attributed part of the weekly dip in Asia Pacific to holidays in Japan and China and noted that Golden Week would suppress exports further.
• Freightos Air Index, 30 September update: China to North America up 5% to about $6.80 per kg; China to North Europe down 4% to $4.14 per kg.

IATA's and Xeneta's growth figures differ (4.4% against 6%) because IATA counts airlines' tonne-kilometres while Xeneta tracks chargeable weight on forwarder data. The trade-lane split is consistent, though: transpacific air demand and rates are firm, while China to Europe is soft. Xeneta attributed part of that gap to EU duties on low-value parcels, saying China to Europe e-commerce exports fell 40% year on year in August while China to US volumes rose 17%. Chargeable weight, which is what these volume figures count, is the larger of actual and volumetric weight.

What we do not know yet

• Whether US-bound spot rates have actually peaked. Xeneta says so; Freightos showed a further rise in its latest reading, and the first post-holiday weeks are the real test.
• Whether carriers' second-half-October FAK increases stick.
• Whether USTR publishes a notice aligning the ship fee suspension with the truce extension before 9 November.
• US import volumes for September. The latest National Retail Federation Global Port Tracker release we found is dated 9 September; it projected 2.31 million TEU for September and 2.11 million for October. That is a forecast made before Golden Week and before this rate peak, so treat it as dated rather than as a current reading.
• Which Hormuz data set better describes real flows: the oil export estimates or the statements of the parties involved.

What to do next

1. When comparing ocean quotes, write down which index or basis the comparison uses and its publication date. A Drewry Shanghai to New York figure and a Xeneta Far East to US East Coast figure are not the same number.
2. For US-bound cargo, ask how long a quoted rate is valid, and what the quote says about any general rate increase or FAK change announced after Golden Week.
3. Check contracts and quotes for a government-imposed port fee clause, and the date from which it would apply, given the 9 November date on the USTR notice.
4. For air cargo, ask whether a quote is fixed or tied to a fuel or index mechanism, since the market data shows shippers moving that way.

If you are looking for a forwarder on an affected lane, more than 29,300 logistics companies are searchable by country and service in the CargoLinked directory, and the public requests board lists freight that shippers have posted for forwarders to quote on directly.

This article is general market information as of 6 October 2026, compiled from the named sources, and is not legal, customs, trade or financial advice. Index values and news reports change weekly and some figures here come from secondary reports of primary releases. Confirm rates with your forwarder or carrier, and trade rules with the issuing authority or a licensed professional.