Shein, PDD Group’s Temu and ByteDance’s TikTok Shop, which recently began online shopping in the U.S., ship the majority of their products directly from factories in China to shoppers by air in individually addressed packages.And their growing popularity – Shein and Temu together send almost 600,000 packages to the United States every day, according to a June 2023 report by the U.S. Congress – is boosting air-freight costs from Asian hubs like Guangzhou and Hong Kong, making off-peak seasons almost disappear and causing capacity shortages, the sources said.

“The biggest trend impacting air freight right now is not the Red Sea, it’s Chinese e-commerce companies like Shein or Temu,” said Basile Ricard, director of Greater China operations at freight forwarder Bollore Logistics.Accor…