The air charter industry was not immune to the adverse impact of the global economic downturn – but things are now on the turn, according to Airline Cargo Resources (ACR) GM, Stuart Tonkin. “Nobody’s making instant fortunes out of their air charter business, but the signs are definitely there that we’re moving out of the situation where people were holding back on spending and using charters only when they really had to,” he told FTW. ACR is certainly ready to make the most of the changing conditions in the industry, according to ACR MD, Bryn Woolley. “We are still using Ethiopian Airlines as our main charter operator,” he said, “although we get prices from other operators to regions that Ethiopian doesn’t support.” Ethiopian flies to Johannesburg twice a week using an MD-11Freighter. The airline also has access to the big-bellied B747 freighters. Soon the airline will be looking at increasing to three flights per week with the MD11F. “These are all available for charter into Africa,” says Woolley. “For Ethiopian it makes good sense. They use the same aircraft they fly in here to charter out to certain regions and then position them back in Ethiopia to pick up their loads there.” According to Tonkin the charter market has to continually battle against shippers choosing seafreight when looking for the cheapest option. “But there are times when charter is the only option,” he added. “For example, telecommunications equipment, election material, mining spares and tobacco almost invariably move by charter aircraft. “The size and volume of cargo is often too big for scheduled services and that’s when our freighters come in useful. “We’d like to see more growth, but clearly that will be dictated by market demands.” ACR’s expansion into East Africa has increased with the addition of two new branches in Dar es Salaam and Entebbe. “Currently we represent Turkish Airlines at these branches but are able to offer the same charter option ex DAR and EBB to our market through Ethiopian Airlines.”
