DHL Group’s international freight management division has introduced an uncommon multi-modal service that combines truck and air transport to move customer shipments from China to Europe.
Most Chinese exports move to Europe on container ships or by air. Transcontinental rail services are also available. Multi-modal products that offer a balance between cost and speed are not new, but usually involve ocean-air or rail-truck integrations. Logistics companies, for example, frequently arrange for ocean shipments to be offloaded in Dubai and transferred to widebody aircraft at the nearby airport for onward carriage to destinations in Europe. Truck-air shipping is rare.
The service from DHL Global Forwarding will pick up goods at the manufacturer’s location in China and transport them by road to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where they are transferred to DHL freighter aircraft operated by partner airlines for delivery to Istanbul, Turkey. From there, shipments can be distributed to other European destinations by various modes, the logistics provider said in a news release last week.
DHL Global Forwarding began trial shipments at the end of October for a Turkish retail customer and the service has continued with stable volumes, a spokesperson said in an email.
The hybrid service is designed to support large-volume, bulky shipments, with transit times of about nine to 11 days compared to about five days for non-express air shipping. Customers have reported six-digit savings over traditional airfreight, DHL said in the news release.
«Demand for agile and cost-efficient logistics solutions continues to rise, backed by sustained growth in China—Europe and broader Asia—Europe trade,» Aditi Rasquinha, CEO of DHL Global Forwarding Greater China. " TRUCKAIR helps customers avoid short term volatility while maintaining predictable lead times."
DHL’s January market update shows tight capacity and rate increases heading into the Chinese New Year, which results in shipping surges before and after the holiday period. The European Union was also China’s second-largest trading partner in 2025, with bilateral trade up 5.4% year-on-year to more than $770 million.
DHL Global Forwarding also offers rail service on two routes from China to Europe — via Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus-Poland and a Caspian Sea route that cuts through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey. The new truck-air service offers faster transit time and more reliability because it passes through fewer border crossings than railroads, said the spokesperson.
Austria-based logistics provider Cargo-Partner, a subsidiary of Nippon Express, offers a truck-air option for customers requiring faster transit than rail, but at a lower cost than direct air freight. Cargo is trucked from Xi’an in China to Tashkent and then flown to Europe on commercial aircraft, with a total transit time of about 13 to 15 days, said Patrick Petznek, product manager air cargo, in an email exchange.
Sino-Europe truck services have gained popularity in recent years because of their cost effectiveness. On average, trucking is two to three times cheaper than rail freight and about 20% to 50% less than air cargo, with transit times of about 13 to 20 days, depending on where in China shipments originate and the logistics provider, according to service descriptions on forwarder websites. Trucks, which go directly to destination warehouses, offer shippers more flexibility because they bypass any disruptions at container shipping ports and airports.
Eric Kulisch
