Riyadh Air’s cargo arm is picking up displaced sea freight in a regional market that’s shrinking

Riyadh Air’s cargo arm says inquiries are rising as war-driven disruption to Gulf shipping pushes shippers off sea freight, Riyadh Cargo’s Chief Cargo Officer Pravin Singh tells EnterpriseAM. The strongest interest, he says, is on the Asia-Middle East-Europe lanes, the corridors most exposed to the maritime bottlenecks that have afflicted the Red Sea and Hormuz.

The market data cuts the other way, though — those Gulf-linked air corridors are contracting. Europe-Middle East air cargo fell 16.1% y-o-y in July and Middle East-Asia dropped 14.1%, both in their fifth straight month of decline, according to IATA’s latest data. Middle Eastern carriers collectively eked out just 1.7% demand growth while adding 4% capacity, pushing load factors down. In other words, the same conflict steering some shippers toward air is also suppressing the Gulf lanes overall. Riyadh Cargo may be seeing genuine inquiry growth off a tiny base, but it’s doing so in a shrinking regional market.

And the capacity to meet demand isn’t Riyadh Cargo’s to control. Launched in 2026, it runs a belly-hold-first model, meaning freight capacity scales with the passenger network rather than through dedicated freighters. That ties cargo growth to Riyadh Air’s buildout toward more than 100 destinations by 2030, from today’s 15. The structure leaves the cargo arm dependent on how quickly the passenger schedule grows, unlike dedicated freighter operators that can add aircraft when demand spikes.

Its pitch, therefore, leans on precision rather than volume, targeting high-value, time-sensitive cargo like pharma, electronics, and perishables, Singh says. To navigate capacity limits and keep freight moving, he says the carrier is relying on interline agreements with partner airlines and a ground-handling tie-up with SATS Saudi Arabia across the Kingdom's gateways.

Why it matters: The shipping disruption is creating a real opening for air freight, with Singapore-based SATS seeing a surge in revenue directly from war-related shipments, but the overall contracting market makes Riyadh Cargo’s timing awkward: the disruption creating the opening is the same force depressing the lanes it wants to grow on. The window is as much about positioning for when the network matures, and when Gulf trade normalizes, as about capturing displaced freight today.