EU Travel Restrictions Don't Apply to Cargo, Though Air Freight Likely Affected

New restrictions on travel from the European Union to the U.S. do not apply to cargo, despite President Donald Trump saying they do during a March 11 speech on the COVID-19 response, the White House said after the speech. The proclamation for the travel restrictions “only applies to the movement of human beings, not goods or cargo,” the White House said in a fact sheet. During his remarks, Trump said “these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval.”

The measures seem likely to still affect trade, as did the travel restrictions from China (see 2002030024), because many passenger flights also carry cargo. “While the situation is changing rapidly, we are expecting a significant adverse cargo impact as a result of the European travel ban on flights to the United States,” said Brandon Fried, executive director of the Airforwarders Association, in an email. “We anticipate that airlines, faced with decreased passenger loads as a result of the Proclamation, will create commercial flight cancellations and, in turn, less available capacity for air cargo. Since almost 50% of Transatlantic [air] cargo flies in the bellies of passenger jets, any reduction in capacity is concerning and not easily absorbed by the existing air freighter fleet. We expect our forwarder members will need to employ their traditional creative logistics expertise in meeting this challenge.”

C.H. Robinson said its European and U.S. offices “have started to pro-actively book capacity on available freight services, and alternative routings are considered.” Customers should book their freight as early as possible, it said in a client advisory. “As we saw with changes in cargo capacity demand and cargo space availability that occurred as passenger travel was restricted with China, contract rates and transit times may need to be adjusted as the airfreight market remains fluid.”

Specifically, the restrictions apply to the Schengen Area countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.