Select language:

English

Air Charter Service - Specialists in providing all types of aircraft for your private air charter requirements

Specialists in providing all types of aircraft for your air cargo charter requirements ...

Current news

» January, 2012 - Air Charter Service raises significant amount for charity

» November, 2011 - Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 250 2011

» October, 2011 - Half year results 2011

» July, 2011 - First of many charters to world's newest country

» April, 2011 - Air Charter Service helps to rescue stranded vessel

» March, 2011 - Japanese evacuations become latest in ACS’s relief operations this year

» February, 2011 - ACS Johannesburg cargo department expands

» January, 2011 - ACS Johannesburg moves to larger office

» January, 2011 - Venezuelan President ‘tweets’ thanks to Spain for ACS aid flight

» May, 2010 - ACS South Africa help out with film shoot

» January, 2010 - ACS Johannesburg – dangerous goods specialists

» October, 2009 - ACS Johannesburg handles dangerous goods shipment

» September, 2009 - ACS opens in Japan


Air Charter Service raises significant amount for charity January, 2012 In 2011 leading aircraft charter firm Air Charter Service raised more than $77,000 for their chosen charities; HEAL, Cancer Research UK, The Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, The Willow foundation and The International Youth Arts Foundation. ACS supports a selection of chosen causes, with a dedicated committee helping to organise an array of fund-raising events. All the money raised by their staff is matched by the company, doubling the total amount. One of the charities that benefitted from the money raised, HEAL, provide shelter, support, education and healthcare to some of the world’s poorest children, with the aim of helping 10,000 young people ‘escape the poverty trap’ by 2015. One of the highlights of the company’s fundraising year took place in September: an 18-strong ACS dragonboat team – named ‘No Plane No Gain!’ – took part in this year’s Great River Race down the Thames, completing the gruelling 21-mile course in a respectable time of just under three hours, raising $9,000 for HEAL along the way. Among a host of other charity functions, a raffle was held at ACS’s European staff’s Christmas party at The Aviator Hotel, Farnborough, garnering more than $21,000 for their chosen causes. ACS funded the building of an IT block within HEAL’s new self-sustaining village for orphans in Thotapally, India. Chris and Tina Leach, respectively ACS Chairman and Company Secretary, recently visited the site and described what they saw as “absolutely inspiring”. Looking forward to 2012, Tina, who heads up the ACS charity committee, is confident that ACS can provide yet more support to HEAL and the company’s other charities: “We are immensely proud that we can contribute to such wonderful causes. 2011 was a brilliant year for ACS, but I believe we can do even more this year.” You can watch a video of Chris and Tina’s visit to the Paradise Village by visiting the company’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/ACSPLC.

Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 250 2011 November, 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.

Half year results 2011 October, 2011 Air Charter Service has reported strong growth in the first half of 2011, with revenue increasing by 20%. And the company has arranged almost 3,000 charter contracts in the first six months of the year – an increase of around 20% on the previous year. ACS Chairman Chris Leach commented: “All three of our divisions; Cargo, Commercial Jets and Executive Jets, showed very strong growth last year, and our international operations all performed well. This year our passenger business has grown more rapidly than the cargo side and now accounts for more than 50% of total revenue for the first time in our history. Our Commercial Jets department results for the first half of the year are up almost 150%. “The group continues to work with a variety of governments, corporate companies and high net worth individuals worldwide. We organised a huge number of evacuation flights for expatriates from Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Japan in the first few months of this year, but the underlying growth is still strong, despite the recession.” The company currently has fourteen offices spanning five continents, providing an impressive global network. Leach added: “Our ever expanding number of offices is allowing us to offer innovative solutions to clients worldwide. We have local knowledge on a global scale and customers recognise the benefits of using us, rather than a company without such an extensive network. A lot of the growth over the past few years has been down the opening of new operations, including the two that opened their doors this year – firstly São Paulo and, more recently, Los Angeles.” Leach concluded: “This continued growth is testament to the hard work of our staff and the successful implementation of a number of management strategies - we are a cash rich company and reinvest heavily in our training and the treatment of our staff – which explains our exceptionally low staff turnover and place in The Sunday times 100 Best Companies To Work For list.”

First of many charters to world's newest country July, 2011 ACS is always, one way or another, involved in ground breaking events. The world’s newest country; The Republic of South Sudan, celebrated its independence at midnight on the 9th of July and ACS proudly transported VIP guests to the celebrations in Juba, the country’s capital. Becoming a member state of the UN five days later, South Sudan may well become a popular destination for executive and cargo charters, as businesses look to make good of trade opportunities that the country could present. CEO of ACS Asia Pacific Gavin Copus, certainly believes that South Sudan will become a popular destination for charters; “I foresee much activity coming both in and out over the next few months. Politicians and businesses obviously have a vested interest in the county’s development and we look forward to providing charter solutions to those investors. Southern Sudan may well prove to be a hotbed of business activity.”

Air Charter Service helps to rescue stranded vessel April, 2011 Following a storm in Morocco last month a large vessel ran aground on the country’s shores. After initial attempts failed to shift the ship, Air Charter Service was called upon. Two tugs were dispatched from Gibraltar immediately after the incident occurred by a specialist salvage company and they headed straight to the port of Jorf Lasfar (just south of Casablanca) where the vessel was stuck. Unfortunately, they could only get within a few hundred metres of it, and the 64 mm towing wire that was onboard was too lightweight to pull the vessel from that distance. At this point the company telephoned ACS for their help. The salvage company had sourced a coil of 400 metres of specialist rope that was located in Athens. The quickest way to get it to the tugs at Jorf Lasfar was to charter an aircraft from Athens to Malaga and then drive it the rest of the way – a journey of around eight hours by truck. The towing wire is able to withstand in excess of three hundred tons and, with the aid of twenty special buoys (also transported on the charter), they were able to rescue the stricken vessel successfully.

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

ACS Johannesburg cargo department expands February, 2011 Air Charter Service is pleased to announce that Alfie Arrowsmith has joined the Johannesburg Cargo team. Due to a rapid increase in demand, the Cargo division naturally felt the need to expand, and continues to do so with further recruitment planned. Arrowsmith joined ACS last year, where he began the training programme whilst based in the London headquarters. Here, he gained experience in dealing with various types of charters, most notably those involving the transportation of military equipment, mail, oil and mining equipment, and enzymes – where the factor of time was of the most critical nature. When reminiscing of his time during the London office Arrowsmith commented “My training was intensive, and besides dealing with all kinds of charters, I also gained valuable sales training as well as dangerous goods training. Combined, this provided me with a solid platform of experience – the basis on which I am able to progress further”. Eager to add to the already experienced cargo sales set-up in the ACS Johannesburg office, Arrowsmith stated “I am looking to promote the ACS brand on the African continent and show clients the professional service ACS offers, not to mention the hands on approach ACS account managers have with their clients”.

ACS Johannesburg moves to larger office January, 2011 Air Charter Service’s Johannesburg operation has relocated to newer offices. The South African office had a record previous year, which saw around a 30% growth in business. This coupled with their significant increase in sales force has led the team to relocate to newer, larger offices. Moving 400m down the road to the Pivot Office Block, Managing Director, Tony Bauckham explains, “We had completely outgrown our office space – we literally had no spare desks at all. We are growing at such a rate that we always knew we were going to eventually need more room.” The relocation cements ACS’s attitude to being the best and towards continued growth, whilst their expansion is testament to their dedication, commitment and hard work. Bauckham added, “We’ve recently opened new offices in Frankfurt and Sao Paulo and have plans for more this year if our business continues as well as it did in 2010.” ACS Johannesburg has three divisons - Executive Jets, Commercial Jets and Cargo departments.

Venezuelan President ‘tweets’ thanks to Spain for ACS aid flight January, 2011 Air Charter Service last month flew almost 16 tons of humanitarian cargo into the Venezuelan capital of Caracas after the heavy rains and landslides in the country. The Spanish Government donated the aid – which included food, blankets and mattresses – to assist the affected Venezuelans. The flight originated from Central America, the cargo having come from the Panama-based Spain Humanitarian Logistic Center. Richard Thompson, Cargo Manager at ACS, said: “Our office in America helped to source the right aircraft for us, and there was a Boeing 727 located in Panama itself. We overcame weather and technical problems to get the aircraft into Caracas and get the essential freight to the people that needed it as quickly as was possible. After the flight landed the aid was quickly distributed to some of the 130,000 victims of the massive floods. The Venezuelans were so grateful that President Hugo Chávez even went on social networking site Twitter to thank the Spanish Government, saying “Gracias por tu esfuerzo”, or ‘Thank you for your effort’!” Air Charter Service is heavily involved in relief efforts whenever a disaster occurs anywhere in the world and with their global network of offices, ACS staff are available 24 hours a day, and there is always a charter expert near the affected areas allowing them to react faster than most others.

ACS South Africa help out with film shoot May, 2010 Lyndee du Toit, Director of ACS Johannesburg, received a request that was slightly out of the ordinary recently – to fly a small propeller aircraft around and for it to be filmed. Lyndee explains: “A production company called us saying that they needed to film an aircraft for a television advertisement due to be shown over here in the near future.” The shoot took place in Cape Town, and Lyndee fly there to attend the briefing with the CAA, who were to oversee the project. She also met up with the producers and film crew involved to work out exactly how the operation should be done. Lyndee added: “The Embraer 110 [Bandeirante] aircraft was ideal for the job – the only thing was that it was deemed ‘too clean’ for the commercial, so we had to spray it in order to look older and more rustic!” For any charter enquiries at all, please contact us on: sales@aircharter.co.za

ACS Johannesburg – dangerous goods specialists January, 2010 Lyndee du Toit, Director of ACS South Africa, used her dangerous goods experience once again to ensure an extremely urgent cargo shipment got to its final destination on time – in fact, it arrived ahead of schedule. Lyndee received the call on a Wednesday evening – the customer needed to get the goods from Cape Town to Pemba, Mozambique, as soon as possible. Lyndee found a suitable Embraer 110 within half an hour of the initial call and, once details and contracts had been arranged, the aircraft prepared to position into Cape Town first thing in the morning. Lyndee used her contacts and worked with the operator overnight to obtain the various tricky overflight and landing permissions. The following morning the aircraft was prepared and ready before the shipment itself, as the crew waited for the complicated customs procedures to be completed. The aircraft set off with little over a ton of payload shortly afterwards and made its way, via a fuel stop in Gaberone, Botswana, to Pemba and then on to its final destination at an oil and gas works in Mozambique where the project workers were waiting for it. Lyndee commented that the client was extremely pleased as the flight ‘could not have gone any smoother’, and the aircraft arrived ahead of the proposed schedule. Air Charter Service South Africa not only offers cargo charters, but also private jet charters, as well as commercial airliners. For your dangerous goods shipments, or any charter enquiries at all, please contact us on: sales@aircharter.co.za

ACS Johannesburg handles dangerous goods shipment October, 2009 Lyndee du Toit, Director of ACS South Africa, recently transported two lots of dangerous goods to Mozambique and Tanzania. The shipper flew the goods over to Cape Town from the U.S. on a chartered Learjet, and then it was down to Lyndee to coordinate the shipment on to its final destinations of Pemba and Dar Es Salaam. Aside from the overflight and landing permissions for the Pilatus PC12 aircraft, the tricky part was that the shipment contained two different types of dangerous goods - explosives and radioactives. These two had to be kept apart and properly segregated from one another, so careful planning was involved. Lyndee’s years of experience proved invaluable, and everything ran smoothly. For any cargo charter enquiries, please contact us on: sales@aircharter.co.za

ACS opens in Japan September, 2009 Air Charter Service continues its global expansion with the opening of its second Asian office, in Tokyo, Japan. Able to offer both cargo services, along with executive & commercial jet passenger services, ACS Japan can cater for any charter requirement. In charge of the Japanese operation is Toru Chiba, who brings a wealth of experience in the charter business with him. Toru has been in the aviation and charter industry for a total of 18 years now, and is excited by this new venture, which is part of a GSA agreement. He commented: “This is a great opportunity for ACS’s expansion within Asia. The Japanese market is a large one, which I know well, and I look forward to utilising my expertise in assisting the many other ACS offices worldwide with localised solutions.” ACS managing director, Tony Bauckham, said: “Following the success of our office in Hong Kong since it opened, we have been looking to expand in the Asia Pacific region, and we targeted Tokyo a while ago. Many western business people travel to the region and having a local presence allows ACS to offer them the very best solutions using local knowledge. Obviously it also allows us to better serve Japanese clients as well, further expanding our customer base and further strengthening ACS’s position as one of the world’s leading charter companies. Toru has the perfect credentials to make the office as successful as all our others, and we look forward to its development.”