June 2025: Israel and Iran start shooting, and suddenly, that engine part your team had routed through Istanbul is stuck. The Middle East corridor you’ve used for three years? Gone overnight.
Your forwarder’s scrambling for alternatives through Europe, but everyone else had the same idea. Cargo space that cost $8 per kilo last week is now $18 — if you can find it. Insurance wants an extra premium for anything touching the region.
And all your operations director cares about is when that A320 will get back in the air.
Easy for him to say, with your AOG recovery getting a lot more expensive and complicated. It won’t be the last time world events mess with carefully planned AOG logistics, either, and indeed follows a troubling pattern of the past few years.
Between ongoing tensions, trade policies, and supply chains that seem to break if someone sneezes wrong, AOG logistics are dealing with a level of unpredictability that once seemed unprecedented. Yet, here we are.
The Middle East remains a mess for AOG logistics — one day you can route through Jordan, the next day EASA’s issuing new risk warnings, and your freight gets bounced to longer European corridors.
Those “phased reopenings” everyone talks about are relatively stable for now, but it’s a volatile region. Things change faster than your routing software can keep up with.
Meanwhile, persistent disruptions to Ukraine-Russia airspace forces everything onto southern routes, adding hours and fuel costs to what used to be straightforward Europe-Asia hops. Your forwarders are dealing with the same structural bottlenecks they’ve been wrestling with for three years now.
What’s also really squeezing capacity? Houthi attacks in the Red Sea continue pushing urgent cargo off ships and into airfreight, tightening up the premium space AOG shipments depend on. Even though overall air cargo hit record volumes in 2024, when you need lift for that critical engine part, you’re competing with cargo that should’ve gone by sea.
All these choke points sound abstract until you’re staring at a grounded aircraft and watching your recovery timeline implode in real time. Beyond rearranging routes, geopolitical chaos turns predictable AOG logistics into a game of costly dominoes with higher costs, longer lead times, and more variables in your recovery planning than anyone wants to deal with.
1. Schedule Instability Turns Hours into Days: One missed connection used to mean rebooking on the next flight. Now it means your part sits in Frankfurt for 24 hours because the crew hit duty limits on the diversion, or your cargo gets bumped when everyone’s trying to book space on the same alternate routes. Planes get stranded, cargo gets reshuffled, and what should be overnight deliveries stretch into multiday ordeals.
2. Insurance Costs Go Bananas Without Warning: War-risk premiums jump overnight when tensions spike, and your charter quotes suddenly include surcharges nobody saw coming. Forwarders start hedging their bets with higher rates, and your AOG budget takes hits you didn’t plan for — sometimes doubling freight costs on routes you’ve used for years.
3. Compliance Roadblocks Kill Momentum: Expanded sanctions mean more screening for dual-use components, and government watch lists change faster than your compliance team can track. That avionics part sailing through customs last month? Could get flagged and frozen while someone verifies export licenses, turning a two-hour clearance into a two-day nightmare.
As if wars weren’t enough, August 7 brought sweeping tariff changes from Washington that made importing aircraft components a lot more expensive and complicated.
The new reciprocal tariff system slaps 10% minimum duties on most countries, scaling up to 50% for places like China and Brazil. Those aircraft parts you used to import with minimal fuss? They’re now hitting 10-25% tariffs right off the bat, with no grandfathering unless your shipment was already in transit by early August.
Even worse for AOG operations: The de minimis exemption was killed in July, so those small express shipments that used to fly through customs duty-free now get hit with fees and delays. Your $800 actuator that used to clear in two hours is now stuck in paperwork while someone calculates duties.
The real kicker is the anti-transshipment enforcement — if Customs thinks you’re routing parts through third countries to dodge tariffs, you get slammed with an automatic 40% penalty on top of everything else. No appeals, no negotiation.
Your forwarders are feeling the squeeze too, and it’s showing up in your AOG logistics costs and lead times.
Those new tariffs aren’t only line items on invoices — they’re tying up massive amounts of working capital that forwarders need to post upfront. A $50,000 engine component that used to clear with minimal duties now requires $12,500+ in tariff payments before it even moves. Smaller forwarders are hitting credit limits faster, and everyone’s being more selective about which shipments they’ll handle.
The compliance side got brutal overnight too. Customs is auditing everything and slapping that 40% transshipment penalty on suspected violations with zero appeals process. Your forwarder’s compliance team used to handle routine clearances, but now they have to double-check country-of-origin certificates, export licenses, and HTSUS codes like their business depends on it (because it does).
Meanwhile, finding experienced compliance staff is nearly impossible, so you’re dealing with newer teams making costlier mistakes.
Complaining about geopolitics and tariffs won’t get your aircraft back in service. Yet, while you can’t control world events or Washington’s trade policies, you can control how your AOG logistics adapt and respond.
Smart AOG teams stopped relying on single-route prayers years ago. Build lane trees that automatically bypass conflict zones and keep your onboard courier (OBC) rosters current across multiple hubs — when Frankfurt gets jammed, you want Amsterdam and Zurich options ready to go.
Set hard triggers for charter decisions before you need them. When your second NFO connection gets missed or delays hit 18+ hours, pivot to charter or hand carry without committee meetings. OBC providers report huge demand spikes since 2024, so lock in relationships early.
Think outside the box too. For instance, Latin America offers underused opportunities for U.S. operators. Partner MRO facilities like Aeroman in El Salvador can handle heavy checks while you plan reverse-logistics legs to avoid expensive empty returns. Sometimes the best route around a crisis runs through unexpected places.
Real-time intelligence and proactive communication beat reactive moves every time. Subscribe your ops team to EASA CZIB and Safe Airspace alerts, and assign someone to monitor conflict zones during critical moves. Getting 30 minutes’ warning on airspace changes can save 30 hours of delays.
Digital documentation cuts counter time and reduces human error when you’re rerouting under pressure. E-AWB systems support instant status pushes, and platforms that integrate with airline and forwarder systems keep everyone working from the same playbook.
ATA Carnets smooth temporary tool admissions, and standardized license packs help with sanctioned jurisdictions. The goal is to remove friction points before they become bottlenecks in your recovery timeline.
Customs law offers several escape hatches if you know where to look.
HTSUS 9801 covers U.S. goods returned without value addition — perfect for parts sent abroad for testing that come back unchanged. HTSUS 9802 lets you pay duty only on value added during repairs, cutting costs on refurbished components. Temporary Import Bonds (TIB 9813) work for parts destined for re-export, like test equipment or aircraft on tour. And Foreign-Trade Zones defer duties and improve cash flow for repair operations.
Get ahead of compliance nightmares by also pre-classifying parts with your broker, defining 9801/9802 eligibility upfront, and prebooking FTZ capacity. Agree on duty flow-down terms with forwarders before shipments move to avoid surprise holds that kill your timeline.
Track what matters: AOG cycle time from door to dock, hit rate on first-planned NFO routes, reroute initiation speed, duty costs per shipment, and percentage of shipments eligible for tariff relief programs. Credit-line utilization tells you when working-capital strain might force tough choices.
Run daily stand-ups with your forwarder, carrier, and broker during active recoveries. Weekly tariff and sanctions reviews catch rule changes before they bite you. Monthly audits of FTZ and TIB programs keep those tools sharp.
Map your escalation triggers clearly: Who authorizes charter spend? Who approves duty exposure above normal thresholds? Who decides to flip to alternate MRO facilities? When a crisis hits, decision speed matters more than perfect consensus.
Wars limit your options while expanding your risks — airspace closures, surprise NOTAMs, insurance surcharges, and steeper import costs all land on your desk while everyone still expects on-time recoveries. Tariffs and trade tensions don’t help the matter either. Now, while the strategies above won’t eliminate geopolitical disorder, they do help give you back some semblance of control and help keep your AOG operations moving even when the world seems determined to slow them down.
At Carrier 911, we’ve watched too many AOG recoveries fall apart because a diverted flight turned a quick final-mile delivery into a multiday ordeal. That’s why we built our time-critical ground network specifically for moments when your freight forwarder calls with bad news. Our 24/7 dispatch team specializes in rapid airport-to-MRO transfers, team-driver linehaul from alternate gateways, and chain-of-custody tracking that keeps you informed every mile of the way. When your parts land in the wrong city or your original routing plan implodes, we’re your last line of defense that can put your plane back in the air. And we have the track record to back that up too.
See a Carrier 911 demo today, and let’s pressure test your scenarios against the kind of chaos we’re all dealing with in 2025.
Get a free consultation call with one our specialists.
