‘Market beginning to turn’

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.”