The Logistics Year 2024, Month by Month: Floods, Ransomware, and a €14.3 Billion Acquisition

In this episode of Rozmowy Logistyków, Piotr Skobało and Adam Sobolewski review 2024 in logistics. They cover the events that cost the industry the most time, nerves, and money, along with their own take on the trends.

JANUARY-MARCH: PROTESTS, LAYOFFS, AND TIGHTER STANDARDS

Farmer protests in January (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland) cost some companies as much as 5% of monthly revenue. UPS announced in February that it would cut 12,000 jobs in the US in response to falling volume — a slowdown signal acting as a barometer for the global economy. In March, the EU tightened CO2 emissions standards for trucks, raising fleet modernization costs by 500,000-600,000 euros per vehicle — for an average transport company, that adds up to millions.

APRIL-JUNE: AIR FREIGHT, RAIL, AND THE EV SLOWDOWN

The Red Sea conflict shifted demand from ocean to air freight (+11%), pushing average rates to nearly 2.5 USD/kg, with short-term contracts making up close to half of new agreements — a sign of forwarders taking a flexible approach to uncertainty. The EU invested 5 billion euros in the rail network under the Green Deal, targeting a 15% increase in rail capacity and a 10% reduction in road load. In June, a drop in electric vehicle sales (-15% year over year) hit semiconductor manufacturers (Amcor, GlobalFoundries: -22% revenue) — lower demand meant rising inventory across the whole chain.

JULY-SEPTEMBER: INTERMODAL FRAGILITY AND FLOODING IN CENTRAL EUROPE

Attacks on TGV/Eurostar rail infrastructure in France forced the cancellation of 20% of connections, generating 50-hour delivery delays and 30 million euros in extra operating costs — proof that intermodal transport, despite its environmental and economic advantages, is more exposed to infrastructure disruption. In September, severe flooding across Poland, Czechia, Austria, and Germany (Lower Silesia hit hardest) caused losses in the logistics sector of around 3-3.5 billion PLN (about 1% of Poland's GDP) — though the human and social costs far outweighed the economic ones.

OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: AMAZON'S AUTOMATION AND A RANSOMWARE ATTACK

Amazon opened a logistics center in Shreveport combining AI and robots (the Sequoia system, Proteus and Cardinal robots) across over 350,000 m² — despite the automation, still employing 2,500 people, showing that headlines about "fully autonomous warehouses" run ahead of reality. Walmart launched an international port-to-door ocean freight service for sellers using Walmart Fulfillment Services — another example of a large retailer becoming a fully-fledged logistics operator, following Zalando Fulfilment Solutions before it. In November, a ransomware attack on Blue Yonder (a supply chain planning software vendor and owner of JDA Software) hit major retail chains (Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Starbucks) — at Morrisons the attack even reached the fresh-goods warehouse management system, causing real delivery delays and serving as a reminder of the value of a backup plan (Excel and human judgment) for when critical systems go down.

DECEMBER: BLACK FRIDAY AND THE CARBON FOOTPRINT BILL

Trucks fulfilling Black Friday orders across Europe generated 1.2 million tons of CO2 — a 94% increase versus an average week, alongside accompanying NO2 and PM2.5 emissions.

CONSOLIDATION AS THE YEAR'S MAIN THEME

2024 will be remembered as a year of mergers and acquisitions in logistics: DSV bought DB Schenker for a record €14.3 billion in cash (the deal of the year), Girteka acquired 70% of Wincanton Distribution (UK), Midea completed its acquisition of Forcé (an appliance manufacturer), and Xcom won approval from Poland's competition authority (UOKiK) to acquire Neonet. The takeaway for 2025: with global economic growth forecast at just 2.5% (one of the slowest paces in decades) and persistent price pressure in transport, the wave of consolidation among logistics operators and 3PL companies is likely to continue — and most companies still can't report Scope 3 emissions, which remains an open challenge for the whole industry.