Rani Awad

AIR CHARTER SERVICE| PROFILE
across Europe to take advantage of a charter trip
home,” he recalls.
However, in the current market, charter does
not need one off events to boost demand. It is
doing very nicely, thank you, and particularly in
North America. In April, ACS launched a new
look On Board Courier (OBC) service. This is a
personalised, hand-carry service, with an experienced
courier accompanying a time critical consignment
door-to-door from collection to delivery.
The ACS cargo department arranges for all of
the logistical requirements, including fl ight bookings,
utilising its global network and state of the
art fl ight booking systems.
“There are already clear signs that OBC is
boosting our results. It is too early to put exact
numbers to this. We will have a better idea once
the service has been running for two years, but so
far it has smashed all the targets we set. We are
averaging one OBC service order every 12 hours.
We have had an OBC service for a while, but now,
with the new look service, OBC is a dedicated
department, headquartered in Frankfurt and we
are much more professional now about marketing
this service to corporates,” Leach says.
Cargo bookings too are growing well. “Over
the last fi ve years we have at least doubled our
cargo charters and our private jet charters. This
has not necessarily resulted in doubling our revenue,
as we are doing a larger number of smaller
transactions, but it is very welcome growth,”
he comments.
The growth into new markets has also helped
to generate sales. “The geographical growth has
given us a lot of scope to enter new markets that
we could not really be effective in without a local
presence. We have just opened a new offi ce in
Miami, for example. We have always had a bit of
a foothold in the market in Florida but having a
local presence will be a real boost,” he notes.
Autumn 2015 | International 57