Air Charter Service notes changing automotive supply chains
19 / 12 / 2023
Dan Morgan-Evans. Source: Air Charter Service
Charter broker Air Charter Service (ACS) has noticed a change in electric vehicle (EV) supply chains since the start of 2020.
The UK-based firm said that since 2020 it has seen an increase in the number of airports used for vehicle supply chains as a result of EV factories opening up in new locations to meet rising demand.
The number of suppliers to the automotive industry has also grown as a result of the rise of EVs.
In total, ACS has arranged charters to more than 100 new airports since 2020.
ACS Group cargo director Dan Morgan-Evans said: “Purchases of electric vehicles have more than doubled in the past two years and production has obviously been ramped up to cope with this fresh demand.
“The EV market has not only led to major manufacturers opening up new plants specifically for EVs, but also a huge amount of new suppliers in locations that we previously haven’t flown from, so we are seeing a large number of new destinations popping up for our just-in-time automotive charters.
“In a normal year, we would arrange charter flights to around 350-400 airports for automotive charters, including many familiar destinations, multiple times.
“But, since 2020, when EV production really started to step up, our charters have flown from and into more than 100 new airports, that weren’t even on the map for traditional car manufacturers beforehand.
“To put that into perspective, that figure of new airports is higher than the entire destination network of major airlines such as Air India, SouthWest Airlines and China Airlines.”
Electric vehicles database EV-Volumes estimates that EV vehicle sales will increase by 34% year on year in 2023 to reach 14.1m units. This is up from around 3m units in 2020.
The growth is expected to continue and volumes are predicted by EV-Volumes to have reached 22m units by 2025, 46m units by 2030 and 74m units by 2035.
