Leading aircraft charter specialist, Air Charter Service, has revealed the company’s half year results for the six months ending 31stJuly 2018, which show revenue is up 23%, from £195.2m (US$253m) to £240.5m (US$312m).
ACS’s CEO, Justin Bowman, commented: “We have had a stunning first six months of the financial year, with record numbers across the board. Especially when you take into consideration that last year’s figures were beyond our most optimistic projections and they were boosted by a number of one off events.
“Our cargo flights increased by a staggering 21% so far in 2018 – compare this to IATA’s half year figures, which show that the airfreight industry grew by just 4% in the first six months of the year. We revamped our onboard courier division three years ago and that also enjoyed a good year so far, with job numbers also increasing by 21%.
“Figures on the passenger side grew as well – revenue was up 32% in our private jet division and 25% up for our commercial jets department. Our involvement in the FIFA World Cup has certainly helped with these figures – in total we arranged 254 contracts for the tournament, across all of our divisions: Group charters, Private Jets, Travel & Concierge, Cargo flights and Onboard Couriers. We flew everything from team kits, to tens of thousands of football fans, plus many of the teams themselves. Our Russian offices played a huge part in enabling us to win so much business over June and July.”
Bowman concluded: “As of the turn of the year accounts, we have been able to say that ACS is now the largest charter brokerage in the world and we are delighted that we are building solidly on that. We have opened offices in Manhattan and San Francisco, as well as a dedicated OBC operation in Frankfurt, in the first half of the year, and we will be announcing another new office in the coming weeks.
“There is an exciting second half of the year in store here, with some brilliant new technologies that we are working on – including an improved OBC tracking system –as well as a focus on further improvements in customer service.”
