Sony Flying in PS5 Consoles to the UK to Meet Christmas Demand - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 November 2021 / 4,013 Views
Sony has begun flying in PlayStation 5 consoles to the UK to try to meet Christmas demand, according to The Sun. The company has chartered three Korean Air Cargo's Boeing 747 to fly from Seoul, South Korea to London this week.
Each Boeing 747 was loaded with nearly 50 pallets of PS5 consoles. Each jumbo jet delivery had enough stock to requires 12 articulated lorries to be transported around the UK.
Sony reportedly plans to bring in two more cargo jets full of PS5 consoles between now and the middle of the November.
"A phenomenal operation has been under way to stock UK shelves of PS5s for Christmas," a Sony source told The Sun. "Sony just wants to keep fans happy after a slew of issues with its new kit, and this is an unprecedented air-lift.
"The 747 plane is rare after being decommissioned by British Airways, but carries a vast amount of cargo as a freighter aircraft. Each plane can bring in 100 tonnes of equipment on almost 50 pallets. It means millions of gamers will now be smiling this Christmas."
Global shortages have limited the amount of stock of PS5 consoles Sony has been able to produce and ship worldwide. The PS5 whenever stock becomes available sells out quickly.
The PS5 has sold 13.60 million units worldwide as of October 26, according to VGChartz estimates.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Santa is doing double time this year!
-MERRY VIDEOGAME CHRISTMAS NINJA APPROVED-
Yep. Nintendo was air shipping freight to reduce transit time in the early days of the Switch as well.
Emergency measures
iz the most wonderful time of the year!
black friday stampede haha
Wonder what the costs are...
Renting and flying a B474 isn't cheap, probably around $200-300k from China to London.
How many PS5 are on a plane? I'd guess 50 palettes * (27-36 overloaded) = 1350-1800 PS5s?
With 5 planes planned that's less or around (additional?) 9k consoles for GB Christmas. Will sell out in less than 2 days. Is that really worth the price for Sony?
"Sony just wants to keep fans happy". Yeah, or scalpers :-) Just kidding ^^
Seem to be taking the UK market very seriously.
I just got my hands on a digital and am already thinking I should have held out to get a disc one (just because of the price fixes of digital games on PSN). Maybe I will try and get a disc when they are more available closer to Christmas.
They did this last year too.
Agreed , the reason I remember the PS2 air freight is the history of the PlayStation documentaries PS2 part showed a big media event with Sony's Kaz Hirai and some other executives outside a New York game store with a pallet of PS2's amid scenes of planes full of PS2's unloading talking about the decision to fly stock in.
Here's another occasion I found mentioning a blocked Suez canal during 2004 sound familiar. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/09/content_398562.htm
Yes, that is an issue. Companies are even reportedly paying extra for container ships to race back to Asia with empty shipping containers, rather than those ships waiting to be loaded with shipping containers full of things Asia wants to buy in return. It's crazy out there right now on that front, for sure.
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