Current Air Charter News
Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 250 2011
Leading aircraft charter provider, Air Charter Service, has been placed 158th in The Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 250 list published yesterday [16th October].
The list, produced every year since 2004, ranks Britain's top 250 Mid-market private companies by their turnover over the previous year, from published accounts.
It is the first appearance in the league table for the company after previously being earmarked ‘One To Watch’ two years ago. Chairman Chris Leach commented: “This placing is recognition of our hard work and continued growth over the past few years, and we are delighted with our position.”
Last year sales grew by 37% to £227.8 million, and further growth is expected again this year.
2011’s list contains household names such as Manchester United, Aston Martin and Selfridges. The 250 companies named have a total revenue of £71.2 billion, and make up approximately 5% of the UK’s GDP.
ACS competes in 2011 Great River Race
Air Charter Service took part in this year’s Great River Race last weekend (18th September) and, in doing so, raised almost £6,000 for one of the company’s chosen charities, Heal.
The first Great River Race took place 23 years ago and now attracts competitors from all around the world - more than 300 teams took part in the event this year. The race down the River Thames starts at London’s Docklands and finishes 21 miles later in the London suburb of Richmond, passing many famous London landmarks along the way such as the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye and Tower Bridge.
ACS’s 18-strong dragon boat team – named ‘No Plane No Gain!’ – set about the gruelling course starting early in the morning in rainy conditions. The weeks of training paid off as they finished in a respectable time of just under three hours.
The money will go towards the ACS-sponsored I.T. block of the new Heal Paradise village for orphaned children in Thotapally, India.
Japanese evacuations become latest in ACS’s relief operations this year 
March, 2011
Air Charter Service’s Hong Kong office has completed its first few staff relocation flights out of Japan after fears over the extent of radiation leak heighten, and has arranged more.
Gavin Copus, CEO of ACS Asia Pacific, said: “On Tuesday we chartered a 400 seat Boeing 777-300 to relocate a corporate client’s staff from Tokyo to Hong Kong. Their office in Tokyo was having problems with intermittent power and the company was worried about their staff’s general well-being following the radiation leaks. We also chartered a Boeing 747 that landed yesterday. It’s not going to be the last of these sort of flights either – we have a few more booked, all flying over the coming days from the Tokyo area. Both Haneda and Narita Airports to the north of the city are open, but most people are migrating to the south and heading towards Osaka and Nagoya. We will also be repatriating various different nationalities in the coming days.”
Copus then added: “2011 is fast becoming a very busy year for evacuations. I know that some people across our worldwide offices have been working seven days a week! Since the uprisings in Egypt and then Libya, it has been non-stop for more than six weeks.”
Egypt
Air Charter Service evacuated almost 2,000 foreign nationals after the uprising began on January 25th 2011. ACS arranged 26 charters in total from both Cairo and Alexandria.
Libya
The situation in Libya was on an even greater scale – ACS evacuated more than 6,000 people from Tripoli and Sebha in the country across 34 flights. Amongst these was the last British governmental flight out of Tripoli carrying the FCO workers and final remaining Britons. ACS was not, however, involved in the heavily criticised first few British evacuation flights. The company had people on the ground in the region including in Malta where an airbridge was set up by ACS from Tripoli (only one hour away by air) to enable a speedier evacuation process.
Tunisia
ACS then conducted a further 13 flights from neighbouring Tunisia, after many people fled across the border from Libya. ACS flew more than 2,000 foreign nationals from the Tunisian airport of Djerba. The company’s cargo departments chartered aircraft into Tunis that brought in over two hundred tons of aid including tents, blankets and food.
New Zealand
Following the earthquake near Christchurch, ACS arranged an American governmental aid flight carrying search and rescue teams, as well as 65 tons of relief cargo.
Totals (excluding Japan):
Time scale: 6 weeks
Flights: 75
Passengers: 10,000+
Cargo: 300 tons
Libya evacuation update
February, 2011
Air Charter Service has now evacuated over 4500 passengers from Libya in one of the largest and most complex evacuation operations the company has ever faced. So far the company has chartered 26 flights out of Libya with more charters yet to fly with passengers from many nationalities including, Turkish, British, American, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai.
According to reports, the number of foreign nationals looking to be evacuated in total is around 100,000. By this rationale, ACS has evacuated at least 4% of the total number of people needing to leave Libya. As many of these foreign nationals are crossing the land borders and being evacuated by ferry, ACS has played and extremely significant role in the air evacuation.
The first ACS charter out of Tripoli departed on Wednesday and was one of the first civilian charters to do so following the crisis. Members of many ACS offices including Dubai, Spain, London and New York worked together as a team to ensure the successful operation in the most difficult and chaotic of circumstances.
ACS had staff on the ground in Malta to ensure smooth transit of over 1000 passengers who we evacuated from Tripoli to their final destinations in Bangkok and Hanoi (see picture). ACS Dubai’s Dmitriy Korshunov was also in hand in Dubai International airport to greet Chinese passengers from our evacuation flight from Shebha in Libya.
Air Charter Service begins evacuation charters from Libya
February, 2011
Leading aircraft charter specialist, ACS, has had its first flight depart troubled Libya on Wednesday. The violent demonstrations in the African country have caused many to fear for their lives and flee by any means possible.
With virtually no flights departing from Tripoli and with Benghazi airport closed, this is proving difficult.
Matt Purton, Commercial Jets Director at ACS, explains some of the difficulties:
“Yesterday afternoon [22nd Feb] only 2 landing permits for chartered flights out of the 457 registered had been granted. Our Dubai office managed to obtain one yesterday evening and has operated our first flight out of the country, on an Airbus A320, carrying almost two hundred Turkish citizens to Antalya this morning. And we now have permits for four more flights, all to operate today. Across our worldwide offices we have bookings in place for more than 3,000 people and are just waiting on those permits. We are pushing these through diplomatic channels as this appears to be the only way at the moment.
“Following the violent protesting in Egypt we have helped evacuate more than 2,000 foreign nationals on chartered flights so far. As with the situation there, we are looking to take many people out of Libya to nearby safer havens such as southern Europe or the Middle East, and to continue their travel from there. Some are flying as far as the States and Asia though.
“We’re just here to help get as many people out of the affected areas as we can.”
Air Charter Service arranges more than 5,000 charters every year, incorporating tens of thousands of flights, on all aircraft - private jets, larger widebody airliners and cargo aircraft.
Egypt crisis update
February, 2011
Air Charter Service has already booked or flown charters carrying more than 2,000 foreign nationals out of Cairo, as the violence in the Egyptian capital escalates.
Although there has been reports of increased security searches on all aircraft leaving the country causing massive congestion at Cairo Airport over the weekend and during the course of the week, ACS has operated both large airliners carrying groups of passengers for embassies and tour operators, as well as businessmen on executive jets.
Jon Thompson, Director at ACS, said: “Many people are realising that the most efficient way of leaving Egypt is on a chartered aircraft. We have seen huge demand over the past week. Cairo Airport has gone as far as to bring in the army to assist with security checks, clearances and aircraft slots.
“Along with the flights that we have already performed we have many scheduled to depart in the coming days from Cairo, Alexandria and Luxor. Fortunately the situation at the airport seems to be improving and the backlog is beginning to clear a little. Whilst some of the aircraft are flying to more ‘local’ safe havens such as Dubai, Turkey and Greece, others have flown as far as the States.”
Air Charter Service arranges more than 5,000 charters every year, incorporating tens of thousands of flight legs, on all aircraft - private jets, larger widebody airliners and cargo aircraft.
ACS Toronto enables CEO to attend two meetings in one day Nov 2010
Air Charter Service's Canadian office last month organized a charter to enable a CEO to attend two meetings in two different countries on the same day.
Anthony Haries, Manager of Passenger Sales at ACS Toronto, said: "The CEO had two crucial meetings, both of which had to take place on the same day. The first was in the company's head office in Toronto's financial district, and the second was in the afternoon in Syracuse. So I arranged for a KingAir 200 to position into Toronto Island Airport, located nearer the city than Pearson International. I was then able to pre clear him and his passengers for travel and they used the executive terminal.
"The two meetings wouldn't have been possible without a charter as it is 250 miles by road – around Lake Ontario – and the scheduled connections just wouldn't have worked.
"The client was delighted that we were able to make it happen and that it ran so smoothly", concluded Haries.
ACS New York take on weather to ensure site visits take place 
October, 2009
Paul McCluskey, VP Commercial Sales ACS USA, recently had to battle adverse weather conditions to make sure an oil drilling site visit went like clockwork. The plan was for 2 groups of passengers to travel from Houston to Shreveport in Louisiana on consecutive days on an Embraer 120 that Paul had sourced.
En route on the first flight, the crew learned that there was some unforecasted bad weather at the destination - fog. The visibility at Shreveport was too poor to land, so the aircraft diverted to Monroe International Airport (also in Louisiana). Ngaire Duncan, Account Manager ACS New York, was repping the flight and looked into all possibilities to get the passengers over to Shreveport - including road transportation.
She was first to find out that there was a break in the weather and scrambled the crew and the aircraft to get to Shreveport as quickly as possible. This meant that they were able to carry out the visit to their new oil rig. Flexibility with the schedule for the return flight too meant that they were able to still see everything they needed to see.
For the flight on the following day Ngaire checked the weather and ascertained that there would likely be fog again and that it could affect the arrival in to Shreveport. She worked with the client to reschedule the flight in advance and avoid any weather issues.
The client was thrilled with how the project came together and how the ACS team managed the adversity.
ACS becomes Wyvern Authorized Broker
September, 2009
Air Charter Service Inc is delighted to announce that it is now a Wyvern Authorized Broker. ACS has been part of the sister Pilot & Aircraft Safety Survey (PASS) program for a while now, as well as being members of ACANA (Air Charter Association of North America) for a number of years, so safety has always been at the forefront of their minds.
The Wyvern Operating Standards are an enhanced set of safety measurement criterion, which were developed over the years in cooperation with The Wyvern Customer Advisory Board.
Ruan Courtney, President of ACS New York, has hailed the impact of offering clients the assurance that all aircraft that ACS charter are checked by PASS.
“A PASS report demonstrates to our customers that we are taking safety seriously by providing them with due diligence on the operator, aircraft and pilots assigned to each trip that they book with ACS”, said Courtney.
Each PASS report checks and verifies crucial information concerning the operator, aircraft and crew for a given trip. For example, the pilot check verifies that the assigned pilot is fully certificated, properly type-rated, has met flight time requirements and has current medical and training records.
“Since we signed up to PASS all our customers have appreciated the added confidence and reassurance that it brings, and now that we ourselves are Wyvern accredited there is an added level of safety insurance”.
“I have always had a policy that I would never put a customer on an aircraft which I would not be happy flying on with my family. In a time of economic turmoil, many companies are cutting back and therefore cutting corners in regards to safety, but we are not one of them. We have stepped up our efforts to new heights to ensure that we continue to offer the safest selection of aircraft on the market.”
High flyers to high rollers
August, 2009
This month Andy Christie, Passenger Sales Director ACS NY, helped two city financiers celebrate a deal they had just closed in style, by taking them to Atlantic City. They were staying at a prominent hotel in Washington DC, and the concierge knew Andy would be able to help them out.
Within two hours of the original phone call, the passengers were in a limousine on their way to Washington Executive Airport – just southeast of the city centre, so as not to delay their celebrating. Andy arranged for a bottle of champagne to be on board, and they were soon on their way.
The Seneca aircraft that Andy had arranged was ideal for their requirements – able to take off at a moment’s notice from the short runway at Washington Executive Airport
- Please also see http://www.aircharter.co.uk/current_news.htm or for Canadian Air Cargo News
