Ebola spikes demand for air charters

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has compounded an already strong demand for air charters into the continent as scheduled f lights are cancelled and project cargo and humanitarian relief increasingly turn to the sector. Lyndee du Toit of Air Charter Service South Africa, which has business interests across the continent, said growth generally had been “strong and consistent” over the past year but the Ebola outbreak had now increased demand. “It has stopped scheduled services going into the region almost entirely, which has seen demand for us spike, particularly for aid and relief,” Du Toit said. “While there is the demand, the list of operators who are willing to f ly there is shortening. This has meant that we’ve relied heavily on our most trusted contacts to complete the bookings. We’ve helped get relief shipments in that many others cannot and no matter how small a difference it makes, we have been working around the clock to help those in need,” Du Toit said. “Obviously with the Ebola outbreak West Africa has almost completely shut down from a project shipment standpoint, although we are flying aid in from the West and our passenger divisions are coordinating evacuations,” she said. “The freeze of most commercial shipments into West Africa, the demand to clear the backlog, coupled with the need to get relief equipment out will amount to a spike in requests for charters into the region.” Apart from the high number of relief shipments to West Africa, Du Toit said the company had received most of its bookings from Southern and Northern Africa due to intense oil, gas and mining activity, with shipments moving in from North America, Europe and Asia. “Project cargo is huge in Africa due to a combination of the huge resource industries and the fact that infrastructure is so far behind the rest of the world. For the foreseeable future there will be steady demand for the movement of building materials,” Du Toit said. “They are continuously discovering more and more oil, gas and minerals so the level of activity has been very high. The oil and gas, mining and need for infrastructure will equate to a continuous need for aircraft charters,” she added. Iain Clark, a director of Nucleus Mining and Africa Logistics, which has offices and warehousing across the continent and also works alongside contracted joint venture partners, said the company was presently involved with several major mining projects. These include mining projects in the DRC and Zambia, Clark said, as well as oil and gas, construction and remote camp logistics in Mozambique, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. “Being involved in some major projects in Africa we have seen large growth in terms of volumes by road, air and sea on the logistics front,” Clark said. Cargo being moved is diverse but a large proportion is related to mining projects, he added. “We have seen more of a shift towards a combination of logistics modes – generally at better rates," Clark said. Gerhard Coetzee, Johannesburg branch operations manager for BidAir Cargo, said charters were being f lown for Ebola relief into West African countries, while chartered cargo f lights for mining equipment, such as machinery spares and generators, were destined for the likes of Mozambique and Zambia. He said the company had also seen air charter demand for tractors and spare parts to former SA farmers in Gabon. However, he said air charters faced the ongoing challenge of the rising fuel price and competition from road and sea freight. INSERT & CAPTION 1 While there is the demand, the list of operators who are willing to fly there is shortening. – Lyndee du Toit INSERT & CAPTION 2 Being involved in some major projects in Africa we have seen large growth in terms of volumes by road, air and sea on the logistics front ends. – Iain Clark