Cargo deliveries from Italy during the national strike of truck owners and drivers

Carriers from Italy have stopped work because of the abnormal spike in fuel prices. Which logistics operators in Russia will be affected, and is TRANSPORTIR among them?

TRANSPORTIR Russia is weakly dependent on the Italian heavy haulage fleet to support the logistics of our customers in Russia, says Anna Saulskaya, Chief Marketing Officer of TRANSPORTIR Group, especially when it comes to the delivery of groupage cargo from Italy.

The fact is that the delivery of groupage cargo from Italy to Moscow and its regions goes through TRANSPORTIR's local warehouses, the so-called "pre-consolidation" hubs near Milan and in Azzano-Decimo. As a rule, Italian suppliers send us LTL (less than truck load) shipments to these hubs themselves with the help of freight "courier" services, which have not joined the action of heavy truckers. At the "door" pick-up our forces also use small tonnage transport on the short shoulders of the "supplier's warehouse – hub in Italy".

TRANSPORTIR is not currently experiencing a shortage of cargo traffic, so the accumulation is even ahead of schedule, ready for the next link - the delivery of goods from Italy in FTL shuttles to the large customs distribution warehouse in Poland. This shoulder happens in our fleet of Polish registration.

The difficulties are rather experienced by the companies forwarding direct shipments by "whole" trucks (18-20 tons to one address) from Italy, and in general from Europe to Russia. The reason is not only in the position of Italian carriers regarding the unprofitability of operations as a result of rising fuel costs. Shippers in the EU are wary and long check the documents of alternative carriers from Russia and Belarus, as a third, but direct party to the CMR-convention for the international supply, on the new sanctions’ aspects (bank details, founders).

FTL (full truck load) shipments from Italy we also serve with cross-docking at our warehouse in Poland, where TRANSPORTIR Poland employees ensure legal change of transport on CIS "numbers".

Background

In the 10th of March 2022, Italian freight carriers massively suspended long-haul transportation, including cross-border routes, with force majeure declared. A spike in gasoline and petroleum derivatives prices made it impossible to execute contracts at break-even.