Strong quarter for Expeditors, air freight leads the way

That helped lead to a 32% year-on-year increase in revenue, to $3.5 billion from $2.65 billion a year earlier. Operating income rose 41%, to $349.6 million from $247.7 million in 2025. Net income jumped to $2.03 per share from $1.34 a year ago.

Expeditors (NYSE: EXPD) does not hold an earnings call with analysts. The prepared comments by CEO Daniel Wall in the earnings announcement celebrated the strong quarter. 

“Our excellent performance this quarter, with double-digit growth across most of our products, is demonstrating that our strategy around operational excellence is working and allowing us to take market share,” Wall said. “By focusing on increasing growth in each region, product, and district, we generated tremendous growth and diversification. Our sales, account management, and operations teams all executed extremely well globally this quarter to drive and support this momentum.”

‘Highly elevated’

The strong performance of its airfreight operations came in a market that Wall said had “highly elevated” buy and sell rates, “as demand for air capacity continued to outweigh available space, particularly late in the quarter.”

Wall also said the Middle East conflict reduced the number of passenger flights that could handle air freight, resulting in “constrained belly capacity.”

Wall also cited strong demand from “hyperscalers,” the operators of huge cloud systems and the data centers that power them. “We have seen increased demand for freighter space, as some hyperscalers are requiring upper-deck access for their servers,” Wall said.

Signs of improvement on the water

The ocean market, with its weak first part of the three months followed by late strength, was still up 7% sequentially from the first quarter, as measured by volume. “We may be starting to see a flattening of the long downturn in the ocean market,” Wall said.

Profitability measured per container was higher in the second quarter fueled by “heightened pricing late in the quarter.”

Expeditors’ customs forwarding business has benefited from tariffs as shippers try to sort through the complexity of changing levies. That continued in the quarter.

“Our customs business benefited from tariff-related complexity, along with solid growth from new customers and increased declarations from existing customers,” Wall said. He added that there has been a “temporary surge” in activity related to the tariffs under the Trump administration’s  International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.

The cost of transportation rose faster than the increase in revenues. Transportation costs climbed 38% against the 32% increase in revenues. But salaries and other operating expenses were up just 13%, helping to lead to the increase in income. 

Expeditors stock has been a strong performer. It was up about 2.8% at approximately 11:15 a.m. Tuesday after the earnings release. According to Barchart, the percentage gains for Expeditors are 4.57% for the month, 25.43% for the three months and 49.9% for the last 52 weeks.

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