• The Port of Chancay has rapidly reshaped Peru–Asia trade, slashing ocean transit times and costs while driving export growth, but its impact is concentrated in bulk and lower-urgency cargo rather than high-value perishables.

• Airfreight remains structurally insulated for premium, time-critical exports (notably asparagus, mangoes and blueberries), where shelf life and speed outweigh cost, effectively placing air and ocean in distinct commercial segments.

• The real competitive pressure lies in mid-value perishables and import flows: as cold chain infrastructure expands and trade volumes rise, ocean may capture more share, while geopolitical or supply chain disruptions at Chancay could conversely boost airfreight demand.

Chancay has attracted plenty of attention from diplomats and geopoliticians. Airfreight operators have more practical interests.

When the US$3.5 billion megaport opened on Peru’s Pacific coast in November 2024, the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO)-operated terminal cut Shanghai-Lima ocean transit significantly from 42 days to 23 and shipping costs by around 20 percent. Peru’s exports hit a record US$90.08 billion in 2025, up 21 percent year-on-year, according to Peru’s trade ministry, with China’s purchases of Peruvian goods up 30 percent in a single year.

The port handled 336,200 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in its first half-year of full operations and is already Peru’s third-largest. A second phase worth a further US$1.3 billion is planned for 2027.

What moves by air and why

Air cargo accounts for just 1.3 percent of Peru’s export tonnage but 23 percent of its export value. What moves by air from Peru is not bulk. It’s blueberries, asparagus and fresh grapes going to premium markets where freshness is king and a day’s delay is money left on the table.

Three products drive Peru’s air cargo volumes: asparagus, mangoes and blueberries, representing 62.4 percent of the total. IAG Cargo reported a 21 percent year-on-year jump in perishables volumes in the first half of 2025, handling up to 30 tonnes of asparagus daily during Peru’s September-December peak season on the Lima-Madrid route alone.

Carlos Aparcana, general manager of Peruvian exporter Peak Quality, summed it up: “During our high season from September to December, we handle up to 30 tonnes of asparagus a day. Working with IAG Cargo gives us the reliability we need to meet global demand and tight deadlines.”

A 23-day ocean transit does not change that calculation. Peruvian asparagus on a European supermarket shelf has a shelf life measured in days. Airfreight does not compete with Chancay on this product. It operates in a different commercial universe entirely.

Not so fast

Chancay’s early export data shows ocean already moving some of the same commodities airfreight handles, blueberries, avocados, grapes. The difference is buyer, market and price point. Peru’s Ministry of Economy and Finance reported that between November 2024 and February 2025, blueberry exports through Chancay totalled US$33.1 million, mostly destined for China and the Netherlands.

Ocean-shipped blueberries are going to bulk buyers who can wait. Air-shipped blueberries are heading to premium retail on 48-hour windows. Same fruit, different business.

The area to watch is mid-value perishables with longer shelf lives, table grapes being a glaring example. The first break-bulk shipment of Peruvian table grapes via Chancay in January 2025 proved ocean can serve that product. As Chancay’s cold chain infrastructure matures, more mid-tier perishables could follow. Peru’s cold chain logistics market is valued at US$510 million in 2025 and forecast to grow at 4.1 percent annually through 2030. That build-out is worth keeping an eye on.

The rising tide argument

The stronger case for airfreight may actually be that Chancay expands the market. Shanghai-Peru trade surged 40.3 percent in 2025 on the back of the new corridor. More trade means more imports into Peru, pharmaceuticals, electronics, machinery, much of it moving by air because ocean is incapable of serving those timelines.

Airfreight forwarding in Peru is projected at a 5.55 percent compound annual growth rate through 2031. LATAM Cargo’s pharmaceutical volumes grew 43 percent in 2025 across 221 Centre of Excellence for Independent Validators (CEIV) Pharma-certified routes. Chinese goods already account for 68 percent of imports through Chancay, according to East Asia Forum analysis, and a significant share, electronics, pharmaceuticals, high-value machinery, will keep moving via airfreight regardless of what the port does.

The risk nobody’s mentioning

In February 2026 the US State Department issued a formal warning to Peru after a Peruvian court limited regulatory oversight of Chancay. For airfreight operators the real question is simple: what happens to Peru’s import flows when Chancay faces adversity? A geopolitical disruption to Chancay wouldn’t stop asparagus shipments. It would, however, reshape import flows in ways that affect air cargo demand.

What to watch

Three things worth watching: whether Chancay’s phase two cold chain investment pulls mid-value perishables away from air; whether the bi-oceanic railway to Brazil reshapes agro-export flows; and whether US-China friction around COSCO creates disruptions that push time-sensitive cargo back to the skies.

Chancay is a port story that airfreight cannot afford to ignore. It operates in the same economy that airfreight depends on. It moves a lot of the same product to the same markets.

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