ONT air freight runs up 11% for the year as IE warehouse demand softens

Ontario International Airport handled more than 63,000 tons of freight in May, the Ontario International Airport Authority reported, an 8.2% gain over the same month last year. Through the first five months of 2026, freight tonnage is up 11.2% to more than 307,000 tons.

That puts the IE's air-cargo gateway on a different track from its warehouse market. CBRE put IE Core industrial vacancy at 7.8% in the first quarter, the steepest of four straight quarters of rising or flat vacancy, with large move-outs in the 500,000-square-foot-and-up range driving the climb. The boxes coming off the warehouse market and the boxes moving through the airport are telling different stories.

The two aren't measuring the same thing, which is the point. Air freight is the express lane — time-definite shipping that clears a premium because speed beats cost. ONT is a sorting hub for UPS, FedEx and Amazon Air, so its tonnage tracks how fast goods need to move, not how much storage the region is leasing. When parcel volume holds up while big-box absorption goes negative, it signals demand shifting toward velocity: smaller, faster shipments that move through and out rather than sit.

The rate of gain is cooling, though, and an operator watching this line should track it. Freight growth has stepped down each month this year, from 12.7% in March to 10.2% in April to 8.2% in May. The direction is still up and the year-to-date figure stays in double digits, but the year-over-year comparisons are getting harder as 2026 laps a strong 2025. The signal to watch is whether the express lane holds its lead over the warehouse market through the summer, or whether the two lines start to converge.