Miami International Airport and Trade
Contents
Trevor L Taylor, a Miami private investor and the founder of Fortius Capital, is based in a metro area where much of the economy lands on a cargo apron west of downtown. Miami International Airport is best known to travelers as a passenger hub, but its freight business ties the city to Latin America more tightly than almost any other piece of infrastructure. This entry explains how that cargo trade works, what moves through it and why the airport keeps investing in it.
What MIA handles
The airport sits on 3,230 acres near downtown, is run by the county aviation department and dates to 1928, according to its own About Us page1. It describes itself as the country’s busiest airport for international freight and second busiest for international passengers, with more flights to Latin America and the Caribbean than any other US airport and more than 90 carriers.
The cargo numbers are large. The airport’s cargo development page2 reports a record 3.4 million tons of freight in 2025, ranging from perishables to pharmaceuticals, electronic commerce and high technology goods, served by more than 35 all cargo airlines. The county’s economic development agency cites a 2024 Martin Associates study ranking MIA first for international freight, and puts total trade through the Miami Customs District at $137 billion in 20233.
Why geography matters
The airport’s role is old and rooted in distance. In a report from two decades ago, Aviation Pros noted that MIA handled 82 percent of all US air imports and 77 percent of air exports with Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining that Miami dominates because it is the closest point4 to South America and much of the Caribbean Basin. The same article made a point that still holds: air freight is the most expensive way to ship, but for fresh flowers, seafood, fruit and vegetables from Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Costa Rica it is the only practical way. Counting in transit freight bound for other countries, the airport handled 1.6 million tons that year, ahead of the main international airports serving New York and Chicago, and it took 69 percent of all US air imports of perishables.
Passenger flights add capacity. MIA’s director told the American Journal of Transportation that the airport runs 39 nonstop daily flights to Latin America5 and that 15 of its top 25 international markets are in the region. American Airlines, which uses Miami as a hub, carries large volumes of freight in the lower decks of its passenger jets alongside the dedicated freighters. That network is the physical backbone of the broader story told in the entry on Miami as a gateway to Latin America.
Flower season
Nothing shows the trade more clearly than cut flowers. WLRN reported during one Valentine’s season that around 90 percent of the roses and cut flowers sold in the United States for the holiday come through Miami6, arriving on hundreds of flights from Colombia and Ecuador. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists inspect the bundles for pests before they move on to florists and supermarkets. An Avianca Cargo executive said the airline alone carried about 460 million flowers from Ecuador and Colombia that season, on some 300 flights over roughly three weeks starting in mid January, which gives a sense of how concentrated the work is.
The volumes keep growing. An Associated Press report carried by WLRN said agricultural specialists would process about 990 million stems7 in the weeks before one Valentine’s Day, that the airport took in almost 3.5 million tons of cargo the prior year, and that flowers accounted for about 400,000 tons. Importers warned that tariffs on Colombian and Ecuadorian goods and a new Colombian minimum wage would raise bouquet prices. The busiest carrier, Avianca Cargo, later reported a record 20,100 tons of fresh flowers8 in a single Mother’s Day season, up 15 percent.
Freighters and transit cargo
Dedicated cargo planes proved their value during the pandemic. The airport’s cargo development chief told FreightWaves that MIA moved a record 2.3 million tons in 2020 and had more than 30 freighter operators9 serving over 120 destinations, so freight that normally rode in passenger bellies shifted to freighters when airlines grounded flights. He also described Miami as a planned transfer point for vaccines bound from Europe and Asia to Latin America.
Much of what lands at MIA is not staying in Florida. The airport reports that in transit freight recently overtook origin and destination freight for the first time in more than a decade, a 55 to 45 split that underscores its role as a transfer hub. Imports are dominated by perishables, while exports lean toward higher value manufactured goods.
Cold storage and new capacity
Perishable trade needs refrigeration and inspection space. FreightWaves reported on the groundbreaking of a $141 million cold storage and plant inspection facility, a public private partnership between the airport and PortMiami, sized at 340,000 square feet10 and set to open in 2027. The complex is expected to raise the airport’s cold storage capacity by half, and part of it will use electron beam pasteurization rather than older fumigation. It follows approval of a four story freight terminal meant to handle more cargo, a sign of how closely the airport and the seaport now plan together, as described in the entry on PortMiami.
Duty free zones
The airport also sells a regulatory advantage. MIA holds a Foreign Trade Zone magnet site designation, which lets businesses bring imported goods into a secured site and defer duties until the goods enter the US market, or avoid them if the goods are exported again, according to the airport’s cargo page. For distributors serving Latin America and the Caribbean, that combination of flights, refrigerated space and deferred duties is the core of the offer.
Taken together, the pieces explain why air cargo at MIA remains the expensive mode that perishable trade with Latin America still cannot replace.
