Analyzing the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on international logistics costs in Türkiye using AHP method

The Covid-19 pandemic, which emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019, has taken the whole world under its influence in a short time. The World Health Organization declared this case as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, when the first Covid-19 case was occured in Turkey. The pandemic negatively affected all areas of life and the logistics sector was one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic. Logistics activities, as an integral part of the supply chain in international trade, play an important role in the delivery of raw materials, finished and semi-finished goods from the supplier to the final consumer. With the emergence and rapid spread of the pandemic, breaks in the international supply chain have been observed. In order to reduce the spread of the pandemic, states have taken various precautions. Within the scope of these precautions, borders were closed or limited, additional controls were introduced at borders, and quarantine practices were introduced. As a result of the precautions taken, international logistics activities were partially or completely stopped. Businesses that could not continue their logistics activities were closed in this Covid-19 duration or continued to work with less capacity. The negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the procurement, production and distribution activities in the logistics sector have caused an increase in logistics costs, and accordingly it caused significant changes in the supply-demand and product-price balance. While the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been felt economically as well as the health crisis it has created all over the world, the uncertainty of how long this pandemic process will last has increased the size of the crisis. In this study, it is aimed to examine the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on international logistics costs in Türkiye with the AHP method, which is one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods, and to rank the most affected criteria according to their importance and to reveal the most affected cost factor. 27 survey forms obtained as a result of the survey conducted with the participation of experts in the field of logistics were included in the analysis. When the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the main criteria were examined, it was revealed that production costs were affected the most, and transportation costs were affected secondly. These were followed by handling, stock management and storage, purchasing costs respectively, and it was concluded that the least affected costs were customs clearance costs. It is considered that this study will contribute to the literature on how global epidemics can affect international logistics activities and logistics costs. Keywords: International logistics, Logistics cost, Covid-19 pandemic, AHP method