When air freight is actually the cheaper option
Air costs more per kilo and less per day. For some cargo the maths favours the plane — here is how to tell which.
Air freight costs roughly ten times ocean per kilogram. It is also roughly thirty times faster. Whether that trade is worth making depends entirely on what the cargo is worth and how quickly it loses value.
The calculation is straightforward. Take the value of the goods, multiply by your cost of capital and the days saved, then add the value of lost sales avoided and any safety stock you no longer need to hold. Compare that against the freight difference.
For dense, low-value goods the answer is almost always ocean. For high-value electronics, short-life fashion, or anything where a stock-out costs a sale you never recover, air often wins outright — and a hybrid split, flying the first tranche and sailing the rest, usually beats either extreme.
The mistake is treating mode as a standing policy rather than a per-shipment decision. It should be recalculated whenever value density or lead-time pressure changes.
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