Current news

Leading aircraft provider Air Charter Service has now evacuated more than 4,500 passengers from Libya in one of the largest and most complex evacuation operations the company has ever faced. So far the ACS has chartered 26 flights out of Libya, with more charters yet to fly. Passengers have been of many nationalities including British, American, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese. According to media reports, the number of foreign nationals looking to be evacuated in total is around 100,000. By this rationale, Air Charter Service has evacuated at least 4% of the total number of people that needed to leave Libya.

As many of these foreign nationals are crossing the land borders or being evacuated by ferry, ACS has played and extremely significant role in the air evacuation. The first ACS charter out of Tripoli departed last week, on the morning of Wednesday 23rd February, and was one of the first civilian charters to do so following the crisis. Members of many ACS offices including London, Dubai and New York, worked together as a team to ensure the successful operation in the most difficult and chaotic of circumstances. On Saturday 26th February ACS had a member of staff at Tripoli Airport experiencing the chaotic scenes first hand, and coordinating some of the company’s evacuation charters.

ACS also had staff on the ground in Malta to ensure the smooth transit of over 1,000 passengers that the company evacuated from Tripoli, via Malta, to their final destinations in Bangkok and Hanoi. Director of ACS Dubai, Dmitriy Korshunov, was also on hand at Dubai International Airport to greet Chinese passengers from the office’s evacuation flight from Sebha in Libya. ACS has also flown relief cargo into Tunis for the thousands of refugees that have fled Libya across the border to Tunisia. Thirty tons of aid arrived last Friday including tents, blankets, cooking kits, jerry cans and tarpaulins.

Air Charter Service Plc (ACS), the worldwide passenger and cargo air charter broker, today announces the opening of its latest office in Hong Kong SAR, China.

ACS has positioned itself to benefit from the growing Asia-Pacific and Australasian market which has seen exceptional growth in private jet usage with official figures showing that since 2003 Hong Kong International Airport has seen steady year on year growth of between 35 and 40% in executive jet movements through it’s Business Aviation Centre, a trend which is set to continue throughout Asia.

Heading up the Asia-Pacific team is Mike Walsh with 12 years aviation experience, who has relocated from the firm’s London office and is to be supported by charter brokers, trained by ACS in London to handle both passenger and cargo enquiries. Yan Fang, Thomas Chan and Stephen Fernandez join the Hong Kong team bringing the languages needed to provide the highest levels of service, namely Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Korean. Soon to join the team is office manager Money Cheng who is also tri-lingual and has worked in aviation for five years with Chinese carriers.

Mike Walsh, Director, ACS Hong Kong said: "Serving the Asia-Pacific region from Hong Kong see’s the realisation of a long term dream for ACS and the opening of the office here has been driven by our analysis of customer demand. This is a huge opportunity for ACS and we have now secured a permanent office in the Central district of Hong Kong. Business in Hong Kong, China and the region in general is undertaken face-to-face so it was vital that we established a key team here in China.”

Tony Bauckham, Managing Director, ACS said: "This is a significant move for ACS, our established global offices network in London, New York, Dubai and Moscow have seen an overall increase in flights consisting of both passenger and cargo of 285% over the last four years and we know that by expanding our presence into Asia these growth figures will be sustained.”

ACS passenger brokers from Moscow and Hong Kong brought their two teams together to ensure a VIP customer reached their destination ahead of schedule and without the hassle of endless hours in transit.  With just a week’s notice the solution from ACS came in the form of a Gulfstream 200, a nine seater mid-size executive jet, which was met by the passengers who were collected from the steps of their scheduled flight by two limousines.

The initial enquiry was received from the PA of an esteemed Russian client who had been tasked with arranging flights between Moscow, Russia and Sanya, China via Hong Kong. He was particularly keen to reduce the transfer time from the scheduled flight into Hong Kong onto the next leg of the journey, so turned to ACS for a last minute solution.

Mike Walsh, Director, ACS Hong Kong said:
“With only one week to plan the flight and our team preparing for the June 2nd opening of our Hong Kong office it was testament to the knowledge of our suppliers and regional contacts in the Asia-Pacific region that we were able to offer our Moscow office and their VIP client such an ideal solution.”

Andrey Gerasimov, a passenger broker at ACS Moscow, said:
“Working with our colleagues in Hong Kong meant that at 09:45am the scheduled flight arrived into Hong Kong from Moscow and was met by two awaiting limousines, barely half an hour later, at 10:20am, the party took off on the final leg of their journey to Sanya, China.”

Contact:  Andrey Gerasimov, Moscow based Passenger Broker and team at Moscow@aircharter.ru
Or Mike Walsh, Hong Kong based Passenger Broker and team at paxsales@aircharter.com.hk