• Air Charter Service (ACS) rose to the challenge during Covid-19, coordinating global charters that moved tens of thousands of tonnes of medical cargo to over 60 countries while adapting passenger jets for emergency freight.
• Each division—Cargo, Private Jets, and Group Charter—played a pivotal role, from transporting PPE and medical supplies to repatriating passengers and moving essential workers.
• The company emerged stronger post-pandemic, achieving an 11% compound annual revenue growth rate after reinvesting gains from the surge in demand across its worldwide network.

The Covid-19 pandemic was probably the most significant episode in charter aviation since the Berlin Airlift of 1948/49. Justin Lancaster, Air Charter Service’s Commercial Director, and Dan Morgan-Evans, ACS’s Group Cargo Director, sat down to discuss what it was like navigating a business through this hugely challenging period.

Like the pandemic itself, the response came in waves, with different challenges at each stage. All three of ACS’s main divisions of Cargo, Private Jets and Group Charter each came into their own at different points over the period.

As a global company, ACS had a front row seat with many of the logistical problems that the pandemic threw up but also played a major part in finding solutions.

From loading medical cargo by hand onto passenger aircraft seats, to chartering the world’s largest aircraft to transport Christmas trees, it was an exceptional time for cargo charter aviation, with some of the knock-on effects still being felt as late as 2024.

On top of the regular cargo, ACS carried tens of thousands of tonnes medical cargo to more than 60 countries over the course of the pandemic.

The private jet side of the business saw hundreds of new clients, as the new, most important benefit to flying privately became staying in your ‘bubble’. The group charter division found itself providing larger scale capacity in the absence of scheduled airlines, including flying fruit pickers to the UK from Romania.

Justin Lancaster, ACS’s Group Commercial Director, concluded: “As a company with our spread of offices around the world, and with our diverse range of services, we were perfectly geared up for every situation that the pandemic threw up. It was certainly an unprecedented time, and we were lucky to have a huge spike in business for a couple of years, however were under no illusions that it would come to an end – and, after reinvesting, we have come out the other side a much stronger company. Our growth is over that six-year period, (since before the pandemic), is shown by our Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11% in revenue.”