Air Partner has freight expectations

Global air charter specialist, Air Partner is seeing demand in Africa's oil and gas markets as an indicator of improving freight activities.

Richard Smith, Air Partner’s product director for freight,(pictured right) said: “Generally, the air freight market is continuing a slow recovery – the charter business mirrors this picture. There have been some improvements but continued overcapacity in the scheduled arena means that demand for some charter activity is relatively weak. When demand for air freight improves more strongly, we do see opportunities for charter providers to plug capacity gaps and deliver bespoke logistics solutions to meet those needs that scheduled capacity cannot.”
Smith said that Africa had bolstered freight hopes.
“We have seen improvement in demand in the oil and gas sector; as reported, activity in the first quarter of 2014 has been good,” he said. “Most of this is the emergency movement of spares and equipment to exploration and production sites in challenging territories such as Nigeria, Tanzania and offshore Morocco. We anticipate sector demand for charter continuing into the second half of the year, as high oil prices continue to drive growth in exploration activity in more difficult geographies.”
Air Partner – which is headquartered near London’s Gatwick Airport - has been trading for more than 50 years and organises ad hoc aircraft charters of every type for any reason. Its three main divisions comprise Air Partner Private Jets, Air Partner Commercial Jets and Air Partner Freight.
“We are continuing to build on the success of our bespoke time critical offering, and are pleased to see that the proportion handled by the freight team has increased so far this year, Smith said. “Most of the work that we are doing in this area is for the movement of automotive spares, aircraft components and oil and gas equipment. We expect time critical to continue gaining traction throughout 2014.”
Smith said he is optimistic about freight opportunities for the group.
“After a few years of tough trading in the freight sector, here at Air Partner, we are slowly looking to expand again. The Group reported better trading earlier this month, and we are seeing a creeping recovery across some of the territories we cover. We have just made two senior hires – the first covering the Middle East, North Africa and CIS, and the second looking at South East Asia. We anticipate adding to the team and looking to expand again if the market improvement continues.”