CMA CGM, a shipping and logistics giant based in France, released air cargo news on two fronts last week.

Ceva Logistics, the world's eighth-largest third-party logistics company, has launched regular charter flights from China to the United States amid heightened trade tensions between the two countries. At the same time, sister company CMA CGM Air Cargo received the green light from a Belgian court to take over SABena's all-cargo operations.

Ceva Logistics said it had leased a Boeing 747-400 freighter and crew from Atlas Air, He flies three times a week from the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi to Chicago O 'Hare International Airport. Wuxi is near Shanghai. The first flight took off on Friday.

The service is expected to attract a wide variety of goods, including e-commerce freight, industrial equipment, electronics, oversized cargo and clothing.

The cargo management company said it will offer charter services through an agreement with Wuxi Xuesuofang International Airport Group. Ceva officials declined to provide further details, but its wording suggests that Wuxi is subsidizing some of the terminal use fees and ground handling fees. From a cargo perspective, Wuxi used to be a military airport and is relatively small in scale.

Wuxi offers inland advantages for goods produced by companies on the outskirts of Shanghai and is less crowded than Shanghai's airport.

Once the cargo arrives, it is trucked to a Shihua Air cargo warehouse less than 10 miles from O 'Hare Airport. The 700,000-square-foot facility includes a free trade zone and a 10,000-square-foot cold storage facility. From there, goods can be distributed to many U.S. cities within 24 to 48 hours via Shihua's ground network of less than trucks.

According to Ceva Logistics, the company generated $18.3 billion in revenue last year, arranging the transport of 750,000 tonnes (827,000 tonnes) of material.

A company spokesman declined to provide details on the overall size of its charter business.

Ceva may have enough cargo business to justify the cost of a trans-Pacific charter flight, but the timing of the flight was unusual. As the Trump administration ratchets up economic pressure, many shippers are taking a wait-and-see approach or cancelling charter flights and blocking space agreements with airlines. Earlier this year, the United States imposed a 20 percent tariff on all Chinese products and is expected to soon ban duty-free preferential treatment for low-value products imported from Chinese e-commerce, which could have a significant negative impact on air cargo flows.

The International Air Transport Association reported on Monday that global air cargo volumes, which saw double-digit growth between 2023 and 2024, were essentially flat in February from a year earlier. Freight rates are falling, and air cargo executives are bracing for a big drop in revenue this year.

"Launching this project reflects our commitment to a long-term partnership that ensures reliable service for our customers between two major hubs." As a result, we are confident that this service can provide value, even taking into account pending decisions on minimal scenarios. Customer feedback on the program has been overwhelmingly positive and we will continue to increase the capacity of our charter network as long as there is real value for our customers, "said Loic Gay, head of global aviation Products, in response to a query from FreightWaves.

Over the past six years, CMA CGM has evolved from a container shipping company to an integrated logistics company, providing end-to-end services to meet the various needs of its customers. To that end, it also launched a small cargo airline in 2021 that currently has three Boeing 777 freighters and one Airbus A330 freighter, with two more Boeing 777s due to be delivered this year.

Early last fall, CMA CGM Air Cargo launched its trans-Pacific route with a Boeing 777, also operated by New York-based Atlas Air.