It’s a Christmas miracle…for some.
While many sought after holiday gifts remain afloat on cargo ships in the Pacific Ocean, the creator of Beanie Babies has ensured that there will be plenty of his plush toys to go around.
Billionaire Ty Warner has personally chartered 150 flights from Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong to ship his products from manufacturing plants in China to Chicago.
From there, the furry friends will be distributed to retail outlets across America.
“The widely-reported problems with global supply chains have cast a pall over the coming Christmas. There’s too much doom-and-gloom out there,” Warner said in a news release first published by the Chicago Tribune. “I’m here to tell our customers that, despite what they might have read or heard, Christmas is not canceled.”
The cost of chartering each plane is between $1.5 million and $2 million, but Warner does not plan to pass that along to the customer.
Most Beanie Babies will continue to cost between $5 and $10.
Beanie Babies were first introduced in 1993 and quickly became one of the most popular collectables in the world.
Within five years, annual sales topped $1.4 billion.
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