Car plants never sleep, and because modern assembly lines run on just-in-time schedules, where each stage depends on the one before it, the failure of a single component arriving on time can jeopardize the entire operation. The Siemens True Cost of Downtime report suggests an idle hour at a major automotive plant can cost as much as USD 2.3 million. The weight of that cost explains why a few pallets can justify a dedicated aircraft, as explained in a recent Chapman Freeborn press release. It gives the example of a German car factory running short of parts that are stuck in Bulgaria. Since those parts are too heavy for an on-board courier, and no scheduled cargo flight can make the deadline, the manufacturer opts for a charter which can move them in around eight hours – an operation that is preferable to the far costlier alternative of a plant shutdown.
Isidro Nuñez Oñate, Senior Manager Cargo Charter – DACH and Automotive Expert at Chapman Freeborn, is quoted as saying: “Car plants run like clockwork, so it takes very little to throw everything off. If the truck delivering parts for step four breaks down, or every windscreen needed for step ten turns out to be defective, the cars cannot move forward. Suddenly, the whole plant is at a standstill, with the costs continuing to rise for every hour production remains inactive”.
Car part shortages can have many causes: a purchasing mistake, a faulty batch needing instant replacement, or road and ferry disruption from strikes and storms. Mediterranean routes linking supplier hubs in North Africa to Europe are especially exposed, since “there’s very little chance of recovering the lost time by road alone” once a ferry is cancelled.
Before booking a charter, specialists weigh every option, from the next scheduled flight to courier services and dedicated trucking, looking for the cheapest way to meet the deadline. Electric vehicles haven’t changed the urgency, though some components bring dangerous goods rules – particularly regarding lithium – that still apply when time is short.
Most emergency requests, Nuñez Oñate notes, are “reactive rather than planned in advance”, yet often with the expectation that the parts will be delivered same day. Since shortages are hard to predict, the requirement is a fast response and having several transport options ready. As the release underlines: “The scale of the shipment may be small, but the operational risk is not. When conventional transport can no longer protect the production deadline, the cost of a charter must be measured against the much larger cost of standing still.”
