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Reed Smith publishes new report which assesses the changing aviation industry and includes section on eVTOL aircraft

Glob­al law firm Reed Smith has released a report which analy­ses the chang­ing avi­a­tion indus­try land­scape fol­low­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and includes a report on the emerg­ing eVTOL air­craft mar­ket.

Glob­al air freight’s future – The sky is the lim­it’, is com­piled by the avi­a­tion team of Reed Smith and offers insights into what chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties air freight com­pa­nies can expect in 2022 and beyond.

The key take­aways include:

  • Drone tech­nol­o­gy offers unique long-term logis­ti­cal, cost-sav­ing, and envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits
  • Freight pric­ing will remain buoy­ant due to the lim­it­ed sup­ply and low con­ver­sion rate of freighters
  • $8 bil­lion of cap­i­tal has flowed into the devel­op­ment of eVTOL air­craft over the last five years, with the car­go mar­ket expect­ed to reach $58 bil­lion by 2035
  • The pas­sen­ger-to-freighter con­ver­sion mar­ket is grow­ing, with rough­ly 750 con­ver­sions pro­ject­ed over the next 20 years
  • Air­lines must focus on main­tain­ing high car­go rev­enue in tan­dem with pas­sen­ger flights
  • Invest­ment in new­er, more fuel-effi­cient air­craft is increas­ing
  • Three kinds of car­go-relat­ed lia­bil­i­ty claims are on the rise
  • Fuel price volatil­i­ty is expect­ed to have more impact on inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion than car­bon off­set­ting costs; how­ev­er, off­set­ting costs will inevitably need to be pushed onto cus­tomers, cre­at­ing new price pres­sures
  • Cus­toms author­i­ties are increas­ing­ly look­ing at car­ri­ers when it comes to enforce­ment at the bor­der and lia­bil­i­ty for non­com­pli­ance

Richard Hakes, who is co-chair of Reed Smith’s avi­a­tion group and Lon­don-based part­ner, said: “After los­ing two years of air pas­sen­ger growth to the pan­dem­ic, the indus­try has seen the freighter mar­ket as a rare bright spot, fuelled by the boom in online shop­ping, sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions, and a drop in pas­sen­ger flights.

“There are, at least, indi­ca­tors that some of the pan­dem­ic-dri­ven boon to air freight will con­tin­ue, and envi­ron­men­tal trends are also work­ing in favour of new, more fuel-effi­cient freighters.”

“Such a lot has changed over the last two years and while we may not be able to pre­dict the future, if we can iden­ti­fy where and how we should be putting atten­tion and resources, and, using our col­lec­tive capa­bil­i­ties and expe­ri­ence, hypoth­e­sise on what might be round the next cor­ner, then we will be in a bet­ter place to sup­port our clients in the indus­try.”

The report explores dynam­ics in four key areas for the avi­a­tion indus­try, split­ting these into chap­ters titled: Look­ing for­ward to tomorrow’s world, Busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity – ensur­ing a sol­id busi­ness mod­el, Avoid­ing unnec­es­sary dis­rup­tion, and Nav­i­gat­ing the giv­en exter­nal con­sid­er­a­tions.

Oliv­er Beiers­dorf, who is a U.S.-based part­ner and fel­low co-chair of Reed Smith’s avi­a­tion group, added: “I am delight­ed to share our new thought lead­er­ship cam­paign from lawyers in our avi­a­tion group on the back of what has been a very dif­fi­cult peri­od for the indus­try. This cam­paign has been designed to help alle­vi­ate con­cerns that our avi­a­tion clients may be hav­ing, and raise key insights on oppor­tu­ni­ties, chal­lenges and uncer­tain­ties that are time­ly and top­i­cal.”

Reed Smith’s glob­al avi­a­tion team is made up of more than 40 indus­try prac­ti­tion­ers spread across the firm’s offices in the Unit­ed States, Europe, and Asia and is a sin­gle inter­con­nect­ed glob­al team whose mem­bers work togeth­er on trans­ac­tions across offices and time-zones.

The firm pro­vides legal ser­vices to a broad spec­trum of clients rang­ing from lenders and investors, arrangers, lessors, leas­ing com­pa­nies, and export cred­it agen­cies, to air­lines, oper­a­tors, air­craft and com­po­nent part man­u­fac­tur­ers, as well as aero­space and satel­lite com­pa­nies across the avi­a­tion and aero­space busi­ness life cycle.

Simon Spells, who leads the avi­a­tion prac­tice in Asia for Reed Smith, said: “The freighter mar­ket has been a focus sec­tor for many of our clients over the past 24 months, and our expe­ri­ence across the breadth of our avi­a­tion group has pro­vid­ed us with unique insight into some of the key dynam­ics cur­rent­ly dri­ving the changes in the air freight indus­try. We hope the report helps indus­try par­tic­i­pants by pro­vid­ing them with the ben­e­fit of our expe­ri­ence and insights on those cur­rent key dynam­ics.”

To read the report vis­it https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/global-air-freight

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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