Faced with major disruptions to road transport in the Balkans, air freight is experiencing a sudden surge in charter requests in Southeast Europe. Freight forwarders, faced with unpredictable delays by land, are turning to air to secure urgent and high-value deliveries.
Charter platforms are reporting a rapid increase in requests for dedicated flights connecting Western Europe to regional hubs, particularly for industrial, pharmaceutical, and electronic goods. This reorientation of flows illustrates the ability of air freight to play a role as a continuity solution when ground networks are weakened.
However, market players emphasize that this flexibility comes at a cost, and that only certain categories of goods can absorb this additional logistical cost. Nevertheless, the episode confirms the strategic importance of multimodality in a logistical environment increasingly exposed to regulatory and social shocks.
