Air Charter Service celebrates 25th anniversary

Air Charter Service (ACS) has celebrated its 25th anniversary, having been founded in the basement of chairman, Chris Leach, and his wife, Tina’s London home.

Leach says he founded the company in 1990 having spotted an opportunity in the aircraft charter market. Before this he had worked Saturn Airways, Transamerica Airlines and freight forwarder, Savino Del Bene. He says when he founded the company; his intention was not to create a global company but to simply pay off the mortgage. Leach says he had to rent a room out to a student at his home to help with the bills, the student later become ACS chief executive officer, Justin Bowman.

Leach says: “The current size of our operation is remarkable and something Tina and I are very proud of. Despite our size now, we still strive to retain our family values and personal service on which the business was originally built 25 years ago.”

ACS has 19 offices worldwide, with a UK office in London, four in North America, one in South America, four in Europe, three in the Commonwealth of Independent States, one in Africa, one in the Middle East and four in Asia Pacific.

Leach says: “Looking forward, earlier this year we announced that we will be investing £10 million [$15.4 million] in new charter technology over the next few years, including to roll out of our new websites over the past few months.”

This year ACS opened an office in Geneva (Switzerland), it moved into larger offices in Houston (US) and is planning two more in the next six months. In May, ACS announced it would invest heavily in its onboard courier service, with a dedicated operations office in Frankfurt (Germany).