Vietnam overtook China as the primary US origin for laptop imports in 2025. Southeast Asia is now a critical node in global supply chains. The airport capacity, freighter services, and handling infrastructure to match that role does not yet exist.
Vietnam overtook China as the primary US origin for laptop imports in 2025. By import value, the US bought more from Taiwan than from China for the first time in decades. Southeast Asia — Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia — is becoming a critical origin point in global supply chains, driven by manufacturing diversification away from China and the tariff pressures that accelerated that diversification.
The air cargo infrastructure to match that role does not yet exist.
I am based in Bangkok, which gives me direct observation of what this gap looks like in practice. The demand is real and growing. The freighter services, the airport handling capacity, the cold chain and specialist cargo infrastructure, the commercial teams at forwarders with deep origination expertise in these markets — all of this is being built from a significantly lower base than the demand growth requires.
Xeneta's data shows that rates out of Southeast Asia will be elevated with peaks if capacity is not managed. That is an understatement. What we are seeing is a structural mismatch between origin demand and origin capacity that typically takes five to seven years to close — and that creates both a significant cost for shippers and a significant opportunity for operators who move early.
The operators who built their DHL network positions in China in the early 2000s captured a decade of growth at favorable economics because they were infrastructure-present before the volume materialized. The same dynamic is now available in Southeast Asia. The organizations willing to make infrastructure commitments in markets where the load factor data doesn't yet justify them will look prescient in 2030.
This is precisely what the Foresight Over Reaction framework describes. The data showing Southeast Asia's emergence as a cargo origin is now visible to everyone. The operators who are going to capture the value of that emergence are the ones making infrastructure and capacity decisions now — before the load data makes those decisions obviously correct.
Bangkok, as a regional hub, is particularly well-positioned in this transition. Suvarnabhumi's capacity, Thailand's position as a manufacturing base for automotive and electronics, and the country's role as a regional transshipment point all make it a logical early investment in the Southeast Asian infrastructure build-out. The question for operators is not whether to invest here, but how quickly.
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