Logistics theory and major aviation organizations recommend taking into account the cost of holding inventory in conjunction with transport cost. This study aims at analyzing the selection of air transport relative to other competing modes from the perspective of inventory carrying costs and sustainability. The paper contributes to the extant literature by its central argument for better reflecting the inventory costs in financial and environmental sustainability of air cargo. The topic is significant due to increasing concerns about emissions from the transport. The main method is based on two classic inventory models from theories in logistics for comparisons of the total relevant cost between the competing transport modes: deterministic EOQ model and stochastic newsvendor model. Compared to a simple comparison of freight expenses, the analysis taking into account inventory costs reveals that the air transport not only appears more attractive mode relative to the main competing alternative of maritime shipping on the long routes, but also improves in sustainability dimension metric under certain conditions. The findings have implications for practitioners and policymaking in the aviation field.