The global freight transportation is the foundation of international trade and economic integration, which is verysusceptible to systemic shocks caused by global crises. The COVID-19 crisis revealed the instability of themaritime, air, and land logistics systems by breaking up supply chains, decreasing capacity, and makingoperations more expensive (Kwon 2020; Singh et al. 2021). The article follows a narrative review and analyseshow global crises affect international freight transportation with a specific focus on the COVID-19 pandemic asa case in point. It discusses the processes by which crises interfere with freight flows, such as volatile demand,border controls, shortage of labor, and infrastructural bottlenecks, based on multidisciplinary research in the areaof transport, logistics, operations management, and crisis studies (Bode and Wagner 2015; Katsaliaki, Galetsi,and Kumar 2022).Three key insights are pointed out in the findings. First, the pandemic resulted in all transport modes beingdisrupted to unprecedented levels: the maritime freight was impacted by port shutdowns and empty containers(Amin et al. 2021; Gulmez, Denktas Sakar, and Bastug 2023), airfreight was affected by the absence of passengerflights and limited cargo capacity (Colizza et al. 2006; Zhou et al. 2021), and the land transportation was delayedwhen making border check-ups and facing capacity-related restrictions (Prokudin et Second, the impact wasunequal in terms of regions and sectors, and the challenges related to such essential goods as pharmaceuticalsand food were particularly acute (Singh et al. 2021). Third, such approaches to adaptation as digitaltransformation, resilience-based supply chain management, as well as orchestrated policy measures have becomeimportant elements in reducing disruptions and anticipating future disasters (Moosavi, Fathollahi-Fard, andDulebenets 2022; Raza et al. 2023).On the whole, this research highlights the importance of having an inclusive model of resilience, sustainability,and digital innovation in the freight transportation networks. This is a strategy that will be necessary to protectthe global logistics in the future against pandemics, geopolitical shocks and environmental disruptions.