Aircraft charter specialist, Air Charter Service, has marked a decade of services arranging charter flights to more than 4000 locations, spanning 191 different countries. Cobar Regional Airport in New South Wales, Australia, claimed the honour of being the 4,000th location.
“Since the beginning of 2013, we have chartered aircraft into or out of 4,027 IATA or ICAO recognised airports, along with thousands more dirt runways, ice runways, non-designated airfields, helipads and water landings,” said Chris Leach ACS’s Chair. “To put this number into perspective, American Airlines operates to 350 destinations in 63 countries, which is more than any other international airline.
Leach also estimates that ACS has landed at around double the 4,000 locations shown on the map (pictured) with some notable airfields that its chartered aircraft have landed at not being on the map or listed. These, he noted, “include Black Rock City Airport in the middle of the Nevada desert, which only opens for just over one week every year, simply to serve air traffic to the Burning Man Festival. There are many airstrips in Africa that are used for safaris, and many airfields in Antartica and Alaska that do not have codes. This year we have had aircraft land at uncoded airports all over the world, such as in ChemChem in Tanzania, Gan Gan Outstation in Australia, Umaria in India and Stolzfus Airfield in Ohio. Along with these, we have hundreds of helicopter charters that land at racecourses, music festivals and fields around the world.”
He concluded that, “Each airport on the map represents a different destination for trade, tourism or aid, and truly shows the power of charter aviation.”
