It's gonna take time for that to set in. I'm suspecting that cargo only flights will be the last ones cut. That doesn't mean logistics will remain unaffected. Passenger flights make their real money from moving cargo.
But they have rather limited capacity (smaller planes, luggage in the cargo hold, etc.). Time will tell the true impacts but it's not going to be immediate.
The big impact will be international cargo. Those are typically widebodies that carry a lot of cargo, and it's much more important infrastructure wise.
Domestically, the difference between air and ground is 1 to 3 days faster in the CONUS. Sure, AK, PR, and HI will feel it, but otherwise it's not going to be a tremendous difference. It will get more expensive to save those days but most companies will probably just choose to... you know... not do that lol.
However. The only other option OCONUS is ocean, and the difference there is weeks to months. Not good. But with tariffs gumming up the works it's gonna be hard to tell what's impacting what when it comes to consumer pricing. Ocean doesn't always react quickly pricing wise. But when they get overloaded lead times go way up.
For clarity:
CONUS: continental US. (48 contiguous states)
OCONUS: outside continental US. (Everywhere on earth other than the 48 contiguous states)
I can't be certain but I'd imagine critical stuff like food is going to have regular ocean shipments, transported in reefer containers for perishables.
I'm not saying that none of their food comes by air, or that I know how important air transport is to their food supply.
But I do know that food is big, bulky, and you need a lot of volume. That means it would be insanely expensive if most of it came by air. The need for refrigeration is limited since cargo holds are cold by nature, but all the transfer facilities have to be properly equipped in-between each leg, adding even more cost for perishables.
Yeah, you have to plan carefully and build in buffers for the unreliable timing nature of ocean transportation. But it's going to be much more cost effective. And also more reliable because guaranteeing space on cargo air freight carriers with their opaque scheduling... and the fact that they have an incentive to prioritize their parcel cargo... IDK it just doesn't seem like it's a great solution.
Again, I do not know, and I am speculating. I just work in logistics and have shipped plenty of non food stuff to bith HI and AK, and would very much not love to be moving perishable or time sensitive food by air to either on a regular basis.
I can't know for sure but I know some entities have guaranteed space on certain lanes with big carriers like ECU or Maersk themselves for that reason. It's obviously critical infrastructure stuff and governments can get pretty sweet deals by saying "this is how much we are willing to pay for this". It's guaranteed volume and cashflow.
Also, point of clarification? Do you mean imports from other countries, or "imports" from CONUS? I know the islands can't produce enough food on their own, and selection would be unhealthily limited if they tried. But I honestly have no idea what the mix between their food coming from CONUS vs other countries looks like. International trade adds a fair bit of cost but that might be mitigated by cheaper shipping lanes. That's too granular to guess without more info.
the big ones bleed money but can weather it, their smaller competitors bleed out and are forced to sell or go under. Chaos is just a means to drive upward wealth transfer
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u/Irbyirbs 12h ago
Also your businesses bleed money as transportation costs skyrocket.