CJI PROFILE: AIR CHARTER SERVICE
‘The only certainty is uncertainty’
From a basement office to one of the world’s largest charter companies, Air Charter Service is founded on personalised service. Words: Mike Stones
Ready for take off: Last year the company arranged more than 30,000 charter flights.
CJI PROFILE: AIR CHARTER SERVICE
‘The only certainty
is uncertainty’
From a basement office to one of the world’s largest charter companies, Air Charter Service is founded on personalised service. Words: Mike Stones
Ready for take off: Last year the company arranged more than 30,000 charter flights.
SOME OF the best stories begin in basements – particularly if they end up in the skies. One such is the story of Air Charter Service.
Chris Leach launched the business from the basement of his home in Kingston upon Thames, London in 1990. From the start, he was a man on a mission. Leach was determined to bring the highest level of personal service to air charter and cargo transport.
While there was no shortage of charter companies, Leach saw a glaring gap in the market for a business built around top-quality service. It was a key lesson he learnt during his early career working for US carrier Saturn Airways.
Convinced he was on to a winning idea, Leach and wife Tina began to build the business in their suburban home. They might have been small in scale, but what they lacked in size they would make up for in delivering exceptional service to clients. A key part of the plan to grow Air Charter Service was to build long-lasting relationships that would see customers return for repeat business.
More than 30 years later, the business has grown to become one of the world’s largest aircraft charter companies. It employs over 680 staff with offices worldwide including North America, South America, Europe, Africa, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Middle East, Asia and Australasia. Every year the company arranges more than 30,000 charter flights and claims access to 50,000 aircraft – from Beechcraft King Air 90s to Airbus A380s.
The business offers a full range of charter and leasing options. From helicopters for government travel, long-term leases and relief missions to executive jets for VIPs and heads of state. It also contracts airliners for repatriation missions and election campaign teams.
During the global pandemic its cargo aircraft charters flew vital personal protection equipment (PPE), vaccines and medical supplies. And it has a long history of flying humanitarian aid in Africa and elsewhere.
“I've been organising charter flights since I worked for an American airline when I was at college. And that’s over 50 years now,” says Leach, founder and chairman of ACS. “I love it, I understand it. Organising aircraft charters is my life. Every day is a new day. Every flight is a new set of logistic challenges. Every flight is different.”
Every client is allocated a dedicated account manager. Its international network of offices works together to find the best business solution drawing on its local contacts and knowledge. Phones are managed 24/7 all year round. Its charter business is organised into groups covering private charter, group charter and cargo charter.
Leach has a large comfortable office with that lived-in look in the company’s London headquarters. On the walls are photographs of cargo aircraft and business jets (including his favourite aircraft; the Hawker 800 business jet he used to own). There’s also a bookcase, a big sofa and a wide desk.
On the desk is a framed sliver of silk. It’s a fragment of the world’s first air freight – a cargo of 200 pounds of silk flown in Wright Model B pusher biplane from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio on November 7th, 1910, for a store opening. The aircraft raced an express train to see which could deliver the silk first. The plane won – proving air freight could be a viable transport solution.
“Air charter has always had its ups and downs – it’s such a variable business,” says Leach. “It’s a forever changing environment, so you have to stay agile and adapt to new circumstances and opportunities.”
Key to unlocking those new opportunities for Leach is people. That means selecting the right people, training and mentoring them and encouraging them to grow within the business. It’s a strategy that ACS has deployed since the start.
Back in his basement office in 1990 when Leach was struggling to pay the mortgage and establish his fledgling business, he offered a spare room to a student from the local Kingston University to help make ends meet. During busy periods the student, Justin Bowman, luckily an aviation enthusiast, helped to staff the phones taking charter call requests.
Air Charter Service’s London headquarters.
Air Charter Service’s London headquarters.
He liked the job so much, Bowman spent his placement year working with ACS. Today, 33 years later he is CEO of the business. “I think we are very privileged to do what we do every day,” says Bowman. “I love doing this ‘ACS thing’ as much as I did 33 years ago, time flies when you’re having fun.”
Leach has always put a lot of effort into training and developing his team. “It’s been a great source of satisfaction developing the skills and confidence of the team – teaching and creating training courses for the young men and women I've employed over the years.”
It seems to be a strategy that has paid off in an age when many companies consider staff with five years’ service to be veterans of the business. ACS has 35 team members who have been with the company for 15 or more years and 15 people who have over 20 years’ service.
Treating people well is a key tenet of his management philosophy. “I was a bit of an idealistic hippie in the early days,” Leach tells me. “So, when I began the business to feed my family and started hiring people, I took a view that a capitalist doesn't have to treat people badly. It should treat them well and encourage them to stay with the business. You don't have to change your value system.”
It's a policy that has resulted in a generation of charter specialists who trained at ACS spreading out to aviation industry roles in other businesses worldwide, he says. It takes up to three years to train a top-quality charter broker, he believes.
The other achievement that makes Leach proud is that the business has always passed “The Guardian test”. By that, he means adhered to ethical codes of practice that would not attract the interests of investigative journalists from the campaigning British newspaper.
“After we recruited the first dozen people, I began telling them: ‘If we accept this charter and a Guardian journalist heard about it, would they write a nasty article about us?’ If so, turn the flight down.” Later, his wife suggested the company use the WorldCheck know-your-customer service and the company has run a fully fledged compliance system for many years.
So, the company always rejected requests to transport arms to developing countries – a policy Leach dubs: “No whizz-bangs to Africa” – however lucrative the contract may have promised to be.
“I have always tried to behave well to my customers, to my suppliers and to my employees,” says Leach. “Those are my values, and I never wanted to compromise them.” He enshrines it in five principles to which all new staff are introduced: honesty, integrity, kindness to each other, teamwork and sharing information.
So, how would Leach sum up ACS? “We are an ethical, decent, solid business,” he tells me. “Any entrepreneur takes risks, but we're very controlled. We only invest money that we already have, and we train our people well. We're a tidy, well-run business.”
Leach points out aviation is still a relatively young industry. “As a profession, it’s only 120 years old and our family has been in aviation for 80 years, with my father serving as a Second World War RAF pilot.” His son James is group marketing director of the business.
Then, picking up the framed snippet of silk from his office desk and gazing at it, Leach explains its significance: “You know, this piece of silk from the first air cargo flight highlights to me how fast the industry has evolved. Plus, how important it is to stay agile.
Andy Christie, Private Jets Director, ACS
“The charter market looks like it will end the year down around 4-5%. But we expect ACS to finish the year up.”
Justin Bowman, CEO, ACS
“We must continue to deliver for our clients service beyond expectations, as it’s this ethos which has given us the platform to build Air Charter Service into what it is today.”
“The charter market specifically looks like it will end the year down around 4-5%. But we expect ACS to finish the year up.”
CHARTER TODAY
30,000 flights … and counting
LAST YEAR Air Charter Service achieved a landmark flight. Andy Christie, Group Private Jets Director at Air Charter Service explains: “We passed 30,000 flights in a year on a rolling 12-month basis for the first time, which is a nice milestone for the company. On average, an ACS flight took off somewhere every 17 minutes.”
Behind the headline, last year was “a game of two halves”, says Christie. During the first half, the company saw declining charter sales compared with a strong performance in the same period of 2023. But sales recovered in the second half of 2024. Leisure business was strong last year while business/diplomatic travel was weaker. Sporting events such as the FIFA Football World Cup and other sporting fixtures supported charters.
Expectations were modest. “We didn’t expect to achieve a huge growth this year on the private jets side of the business, as the post Covid boom settled down,” Christie tells CJI speaking at the end of last year. “The charter market specifically looks like it will end the year down around 4-5%. But we expect ACS to finish the year up.”
Underlying growth for private jet charters is predicted to finish between 5-10% up on most metrics. “The top line is we are expecting to see a 24% growth in private charter flights, although this has been driven by a few large contracts around the world, which probably hide a more modest underlying growth in flight numbers,” says Christie.
When the company was smaller, higher double-digit growth was easier to achieve as each new “decent size client” would make a big impact. But now, in a cooling charter market, it’s becoming more challenging to maintain the double-digit growth rate of previous years.
“Relative growth rate aside, what is most pleasing is stats showing we are beating the market and growing market share,” says Christie. “We are excited to see what the impact will be on our numbers if the market returns to growth as well.”
One factor that helped last year was an increased availability of aircraft. The drop in overall demand coupled with owners willing to charter their aircraft out more to offset their costs, enabled the broker to be more competitive and offering more options, according to the company.
Step this way: ACS aims to provide top quality service to all its clients.
Going for growth: Chris Leach, founder and chairman of ACS has ambitious plans to achieve double-digit growth this year. In a cooling charter market, he is aiming for a CAGR of 13% or 14%.
The main drivers of growth last year were not market performance but strategic initiatives the company has put in place to unlock growth. “We’ve had management changes, such as splitting Greater China into its own region, which has driven growth in that region, along with good progress in the UK and North America, which we put down to changes in people and process,” says Christie.
In North America, the company’s busy year of management appointments includes recruiting Robert Alleman as CEO of its US Time Critical Services, based in the company’s Texas office in September. In April the business appointed Arthur Guibert as the new CEO for its Swiss office, in Geneva. Elie Hanna was promoted to the position of chief executive of ACS Dubai to oversee the company’s growth in the Middle East.
The company also made a series of appointments to its leasing team. It appointed six new members of staff around the world in response to the rising demand for aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance (ACMI) services. The expansion brought new staff to the company’s offices in Toronto, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Dubai, Hong Kong and Brisbane.
There’s also been significant investment in a bespoke computer system designed to facilitate the rapid handling of charter requests. Further roll out of the system is scheduled for this year.
“We grew enormously as a business during Covid.”
There’s no doubting the charter market continues to cool after the post-Covid travel boom. But even that has brought its own benefits in unexpected ways. “From a customer point of view, there was definitely a bit of fear in the market about investing in jet cards following some bankruptcies and near bankruptcies of some major offerors of hourly programmes,” says Christie.
“Plus, the move towards ownership removed some large charterers from the market. Equally some customers who were introduced to charter during Covid have remained. Overall, I think the industry is still stronger than pre-Covid.”
The sporting chance: Worldwide sporting events – such as the FIFA Football World Cup – helped to boost ACS’s charter business last year.
The sporting chance: Worldwide sporting events – such as the FIFA Football World Cup – helped to boost ACS’s charter business last year.
BEYOND EXECUTIVE TRAVEL
It’s not just executive travel that generates business for Air Charter Service. Here’s a snapshot of its other flights.
1. Medical mission: This Pilatus PC-12 flew a vital, go-now mission to transport medical staff and equipment from Atlanta, Georgia to another city in the state for a life-saving operation.
2. Horns of a transport dilemma: How do you transport 39 white rhinoceros from Nambia to Dallas, Texas? ACS and a conservation and relocation company found the answer in large containers aboard a chartered Boeing B747 cargo aircraft.
3. In the pipeline: Flying a 33ft pipe, weighing 0.5t, from the US to a damaged offshore oil rig in Brazil required ACS to charter a four-engined Antonov An-12.
4. Heavy lift in the Americas: ACS’s Brazil and Florida offices teamed up to transport of one of the heaviest cargoes in the Americas. This AN-225 flew a 182t transformer from São Paulo to Santiago de Chile.
BEYOND EXECUTIVE TRAVEL
It’s not just executive travel that generates business for Air Charter Service. Here’s a snapshot of other flights.
Club night in the sky: As a prelude to a huge dance music festival – BigCityBeats’ ‘World Club Dome’ – some of the biggest DJs on the bill kicked off the weekend for passengers on board an Airbus A340, chartered by ACS. Two DJs performed sets on the aircraft as it flew from London to Munich and then on to Frankfurt.
Heavy metal: When Iron Maiden embarked on the ‘Book of Souls’ world tour, they requested from ACS a customised B747-400 for four months, to fly 48 sectors, covering six continents and carrying, VIP passengers, crew and 22t of cargo on each leg – with the lead singer, Bruce Dickinson, at the controls.
Rescuing a rescue helicopter: When a Sea King helicopter was stranded on top of a mountain in the Arctic Circle after a heavy landing damaged the undercarriage, meaning that it was not safe for it to fly back to its base, ACS was called in to help get it back home.
Rhino Relocation: When two conservation companies contacted ACS to help transport six wild black rhinos, the company leapt at the chance. ACS arranged two Antonov 12s to fly from South Africa to Zakouma National Park in Chad in order to reintroduce the species to the country, nearly 50 years after they were wiped out by poaching.
PLANNING FOR GROWTH IN 2025
Meeting the double digit challenge
DELIVERING growth in an uncertain world is never easy. Achieving double-digit growth is even more demanding – and that’s the challenge facing Chris Leach, founder and chairman, Air Charter Service and his team this year.
But not all disruption is bad – particularly for an air charter business. “We grew enormously as a business during Covid,” Leach tells CJIQ. Transporting personal protective equipment (PPE) plus evacuation flights and other emergency missions provided very good business for the charter firm based in south London.
“The first half of 2023 was the last of the Covid disruption boom,” he says. “When 2024 arrived, like many businesses, we had to figure out what the new normal was going to be post-pandemic,” he says, speaking at the end of last year.
In a cooling charter market, Leach assumes his underlying business must grow at 13% or 14% rather than its normal CAGR of 10% in recent years to retain its growth trajectory.
So, where is the company going to find the business to match (let alone grow) its turnover of up to $1.3bn and reach a CAGR of 14% this year? Leach sees “enormous opportunities” based on a conversation with an unexpected source – a retired business development manager from one of the larger global accountancy firms.
The former manager told Leach the firm had set a strict limit on the number of its global offices rather than giving in to unrestrained growth. The upshot was for Leach and his team to identify how many cities worldwide most need their company’s services.
“You can't really sell a charter, people need to buy a charter,” Leach tells us. “So, you’ve got to find out where there’s sufficient business volume – people who need our advice and flight services. And that's how far we grow.”
So, the team identified cities worldwide that they believe can support sustained demand for their services. “I won’t name the cities to avoid benefiting our competitors,” he says. “But there are customers in 70 or 80 cities in sufficient volume that either use or could use our intellectual property, value-added services for us to run a modestly profitable or extremely profitable business via a small or medium or large-size charter service office.”
At present, Air Charter Service serves about 34 of those cities. “So, we are halfway there – and there’s a clear opportunity for us to grow,” he says. “But we must be very careful in investing in people and training people to supply the highest level of personal service on which our business is built.”
It’s not just training the aircraft charter consultants or brokers. It's having in place facility managers, legal teams and all the background details to ensure a top-quality service worldwide.
Justin Bowman, CEO, Air Charter Service takes up the thread. A key task in the first quarter of 2025 is to embed three new office openings within the network to total 37 offices worldwide, he says. “We must continue to deliver for our clients’ ‘service beyond expectations’, as it’s truly this ethos which has given us the platform to build Air Charter Service into what it is today,” he adds.
A pre-requisite for expansion is profit margin not gross revenue, says Leach. “You've got to look at how much money you're making out of charters and try to invest in expansion slowly and wisely.”
The company receives requests to set up bases in many cities, but the team is determined to stick to its target list of locations and grow at a manageable pace. “We’ve identified markets where we would better serve the people there with a local office, with the local language, local culture, the local relationship with the local operators,” says Leach.
“And over the next five to 10 years, the aim is to double our branch network worldwide. That is an opportunity we must manage at a pace where we don't outrun ourselves.”
Coming to a city near you: ACS has identified up to 45 cities worldwide, where it does not yet operate but plans to open an office in the years ahead.
Smarter charter: “You’ve got to find out where there is sufficient business volume – people who need our advice and flight services,” says Chris Leach, founder and chairman of ACS.
