• Europe faces around 502,000 unfilled truck-driver positions, compounded by poor pay and working conditions, inadequate secure parking, and excessive waiting times at cargo facilities.
• Airport capacity depends on the wider road network, with better truck parking, warehouse access, airport processes and stronger political representation needed across Europe. RFS operators are moving towards forming an industry association to push these issues at EU level.
• AI is improving planning and dispatcher efficiency but will not replace drivers in the near term. Electric trucks are advancing rapidly, with ranges reaching around 450 km, but charging infrastructure, capital costs and viable customer pricing remain barriers to large-scale adoption.

Road feeder services must be treated as critical airfreight infrastructure rather than a supporting function, as the European trucking sector confronts a worsening shortage of drivers, inadequate parking and road infrastructure, inefficient airport processes and the costly transition to zero-emission vehicles.

This was the message laid out clearly in the panel titled “Without trucking, no airfreight” at the Frankfurt Airport Community Conference 2026: Europe’s air cargo network is increasingly dependent on a road system that is struggling to keep pace.

“Road feeder service to me is an integral part of the entire supply chain,” Timo Stroh, chairman of the Air Specialist Committee at the German Freight Forwarders and Logistics Association (DSLV), said. “Customers are aiming for a resilient end-to-end supply chain. And without a proper and reliable road feeder service, end-to-end supply chain is not working.”

Drivers are the immediate constraint

The most pressing problem is straightforward. There are simply not enough people to drive the trucks.

“Our biggest challenge remains the driver shortage,” Suemeyye Oezcan, country manager DACH at Jan de Rijk Logistics, said, pointing to German and EU regulations that make it difficult to recruit non-EU drivers because their qualifications are not recognised. Fuel costs and geopolitical disruption are adding further pressure.

The scale of the problem is supported by wider industry data. The IRU reported in June that Europe had around 502,000 unfilled truck-driver positions, equivalent to 13 percent of the required workforce, with 20 percent of Europe’s existing driver workforce expected to retire within five years. Driver shortage was ranked the most pressing concern by 65 percent of European operators surveyed.

But recruitment is only part of the problem. The working environment itself needs to change. “We need better conditions for drivers. We need better pay. Must be attractive,” Oezcan said. “No one wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Hey, I want to become a truck driver.’”

Jason Breakwell, CCO of Wallenborn, backed this up, pointing out how drivers can spend around 40 percent of their working time waiting rather than driving: “That’s not what they signed up for.”
Improving driver welfare is therefore not a soft issue. It is directly connected to capacity.

“Where they make their rest is important,” Oezcan said, arguing that access to showers, toilets and decent facilities should be regarded as normal working conditions.

The shortage of secure parking across Europe is an underacknowledged challenge for the industry, as drivers spend eight to 10 hours on the road and need somewhere safe to rest without the threat of cargo theft.

“I’d like to see the same priority given to truck parking as it’s given to car parking,” Breakwell said.

The problem does not stop at the airport

One way to address the existing issues would be to challenge the tendency to think of cargo infrastructure as something contained within the airport perimeter, with the industry needing to look beyond terminals and warehouses to the roads connecting airports, restrictions on when trucks can operate and the broader European road network.

New warehouses are often being built without sufficient consideration for the trucks and drivers that have to serve them.

“When you build a new warehouse, you need to consider truck parking places,” Oezcan said. “You cannot just expect a trucking company to appear on a loading dock, and when the task is finished, disappear.”

At Frankfurt, however, the bigger operational problem may be what happens while trucks are trying to access cargo facilities.

“If from 50 docks only five open, because they optimise their resources in the warehouse, and then we are waiting, this makes no sense,” Hendrik Bender, chief commercial officer of Sovereign Speed, said.

A fragmented industry seeks a political voice

The sector’s limited political influence is producing a hurdle when it comes to improving operations, as RFS operators were not sufficiently represented as an industry when logistics operations are dealing with governments and regulators.

“We’re not represented,” Stroh said, arguing that the sector faces growing regulatory and tax burdens without a sufficiently strong voice in policy discussions.

“It is no longer a local or a German issue. It is a European issue,” Stroh said, calling for the subject to be taken to Brussels.
That argument comes against a backdrop of a wider European driver shortage that is increasingly being treated as structural rather than cyclical.

The IRU says ageing workforces, barriers to entry and inadequate infrastructure are among the main factors driving the problem.

The proposed answer on the stage was greater industry coordination.

RFS operators are in the advanced stages of creating an association to represent the trade, with safety, security, sustainability and infrastructure expected to be among its priorities.

“We have enough momentum and enough intent now to create an organisation, an association to represent our trade,” Breakwell said.

AI will improve trucking but will not replace it yet

Artificial intelligence featured prominently, but the panel was notably pragmatic about what it can and cannot deliver.

While Jan de Rijk is already using AI for truck planning and repetitive tasks. “It multiplies the efficiency of each dispatcher,” Oezcan said. “People who are not using AI today fall behind.”

There are similarities in how AI is used as a tool for optimising loads, planning and utilisation, but not as an immediate answer to the driver shortage.

“We need the truck and the truck driver,” Breakwell said. “I’ve seen enough presentations from futurologists, and they all get very fuzzy, even more than five years out.”

Electric trucks are advancing faster than expected

Electrification, on the other hand, offers a more optimistic part of the discussion.

The progress in electric truck range over the past two years had exceeded expectations. Jan de Rijk’s earlier electric truck had a range of only 100 to 150 km, whereas the company is now operating vehicles capable of around 450 km on a charge.

“You first need to define, of course, the route. Then you check which charging points are available on the route. Then you book the slots for charging points,” Oezcan said.

Sovereign Speed is already deploying electric vehicles and has committed to significant emissions reductions, but long-term customer contracts remain important because of the capital investment involved. German toll exemptions for electric trucks can also materially improve the economics.

“There is a chronic shortage of infrastructure at the moment. That’s what’s preventing us from scaling this,” Bender said.
The question of who ultimately pays for the transition remains unresolved. Customers are increasingly willing to discuss fair pricing when better logistics performance protects their own production and supply chains.

“I see there is a way to talk about fair pricing as long as they see a benefit in their overall industry result,” Stroh said.

The Frankfurt model needs to spread

Frankfurt Airport is a relative example of progress, particularly on parking and charging infrastructure. Frankfurt has increased truck parking spaces from 70 to 150, with facilities including toilets, bathrooms, cameras and Wi-Fi, while also introducing charging infrastructure. But the panel’s closing message was that isolated airport initiatives will not be enough.

Asked what single change outside the airport fence would make the biggest difference, Oezcan gave the bluntest possible answer: “For me, it’s very clear. I would fill the missing driver seats.”

Breakwell chose secure parking: “For me, said it several times: more safe, clean, secure parking places.”

Stroh’s answer was institutional: “Build a European platform through which airports, trucking companies and other RFS stakeholders can develop common requirements and take them collectively to policymakers.”

As Bender put it near the start of the discussion: “Without driving there will be no airplanes because the airplane cannot pick up and deliver the goods.”

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