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Jack of all trades and master of one
The charter broker must learn to:
Continuing the 'Perspectives' series looking at the issues facing a particular group of business aviation professionals, this month EBAN talks to charter brokers about the highs and lows of their fast-paced role.
Charter brokers today never know when and where the next emergency requiring their life- saving skills will strike, necessitating a race against the clock. With offices and headquarters in Europe and the Middle East well placed geographically to organise assistance, aid for the problems of Japan, New Zealand, Peru, Haiti, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia is provided closer to home than many outside the private charter industry realise.
Air Partner's international evacuations on behalf of governments and corporations numbered 63 flights involving more than 12,000 people and 300 tonnes of aid in one six-week period this year.
Mark Briffa, ceo, says: "In a period when far-reaching and unprece-dented political upheaval has coincided with devastating natural disasters, Air Partner has been working around the clock to organise humanitarian aid flights and to evacuate more than 12,000 people from across the world in just six weeks."
Its emergency planning and 24 hour operations teams, together with on-call broker specialists, have been pooling their knowledge and resources to secure suitable aircraft for the evacuations and aid flights involving Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, New Zealand and Japan. The Air Partner teams have also negotiated flight slots, fuel, aircraft handling and visa permissions as well as post-evacuation onward travel.
One important flight to Japan took in 59 UK fire service search and rescue specialists, two rescue dogs and a medical support team alongside up to 11 tonnes of specialist rescue equipment, including heavy lifting and cutting equipment to save people trapped in debris. Air Partner's office in Germany operated a Boeing 747 flight into Nagoya on Monday 14 March on behalf of a number of German-based companies, including car manufacturers, to bring staff home. The flight carrying 477 expatriates returned on 15 March, landing at Hanover.
Air Partner also organised a Boeing 747 flight that flew to New Zealand from Europe carrying 7,500 sanitation facilities and separately sourced aircraft to move personnel out of harm's way from Tunisia.
The Libyan crisis saw Air Partner organise 37 freight and passenger charters in six days. It repatriated more than 6,000 displaced Egyptians and 500 Bangladeshis on 34 flights from Tunisia to Egypt and flew 220 tonnes of humanitarian aid into Tunisia on three flights. The aid, which included blankets and tents, was used for makeshift camps by the thousands who fled from Libya to Tunisia to escape the Gaddafi regime.
Insurance companies were reluctant to provide cover to operate in Libyan airspace but Air Partner operated a dozen rescue flights into the UK, several on behalf of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office and organised another into France. Large Boeing and Airbus jets, with a total of 2,200 seats, were used to transport passengers of various nationalities.
Air Partner also flew in excess of 3,000 people to safety from Egypt in the space of six days in groups ranging from four people to 222 using private jets and commercial airliners. Passengers were flown to a range of destinations including the UK, Dubai, France and Germany. Clients included governments as well as major energy companies, financial institutions and telecommunications conglomerates, who were concerned about staff safety.
Briffa says: "We have repatriated thousands of displaced people and corporate employees and their dependents. We are on hand to support governments and corporates from around the world who are concerned about the safety of nationals and employees. Much of Air Partner's success is due to forward planning, which means even in unprecedented situations, we are able to respond to multiple emergencies simultaneously."
Air Charter Service is another of the many brokers working all hours and has been organising staff relocation flights out of Japan as fears over the extent of radiation leaks heighten.
ACS's Gavin Copus says the first evacuation, involving a 400-seat Boeing 777-300, was because Tokyo was having problems with intermittent power and the company was worried about their staff's general well-being following the radiation leaks.
The demand to repatriate various different nationalities has been intense. Copus adds: "2011 is fast becoming a very busy year for evacuations. I know that some people across our worldwide offices have been working seven days a week. After the uprisings in Egypt and then Libya, it was non-stop for more than six weeks."
ACS promptly evacuated almost 2,000 foreign nationals on 26 charters from Cairo and Alexandria after the uprising began on 25 January and demand continues. Copus says: "The situation in Libya was on an even greater scale – ACS evacuated more than 6,000 people from Tripoli and Sebha in the country across 34 flights. Among these was the last British governmental flight out of Tripoli carrying the FCO workers and final remaining Britons. ACS was not, however, involved in the heavily criticised first few British evacuation flights. The company had people on the ground in the region including in Malta where an airbridge was set up by ACS from Tripoli (only one hour away by air) to enable a speedier evacuation process."
ACS then conducted a further 13 flights from neighbouring Tunisia, after many people fled across the border from Libya. "ACS flew more than 2,000 foreign nationals from the Tunisian airport of Djerba. The company's cargo departments chartered aircraft into Tunis that brought in over two hundred tons of aid including tents, blankets and food," Copus says.
Following the earthquake near Christchurch, ACS arranged an American governmental aid flight carrying search and rescue teams as well as 65 tons of relief cargo.
The seemingly endless flow of crises has meant non-stop hard work for brokers. But many work hard and play hard, enjoying the days when clients and schedules cut them a little bit of slack.
