Air Charter Service (ACS), had its busiest year in 2023 for emergency response humanitarian flights in several years, with several natural disasters and civil unrest requiring aid and evacuations.

Ben Dinsdale, director of humanitarian and government services at ACS said there are humanitarian projects and development efforts that are constantly going on, but last year, ACS saw a higher number of occasions than usual where it had to activate its specialist Humanitarian Task Forces around its our global offices in response to an emergency.

"The first notable humanitarian operation that we arranged charters for last year was in February, following an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale which struck Turkey and was also strongly felt in Syria," he said.

By the following day, ACS had flown German and British search and rescue teams to the region, as well as an ACS representative to ensure the smooth operation of the charters that followed.

"In all, we arranged charters for more than 2,000 tonnes of relief cargo to fly in, on a wide variety of aircraft, including Boeing 737s, 747s, 757s and 777s, Airbus A300s and A330s, and Ilyushin 76s," he added, noting that the cargo included shelters, tents, blankets, food and drink supplies, as well as the field hospital.

Dinsdale noted that in April, following civil war breaking out in Sudan, ACS' response teams in the US, Europe and the Middle East were all called into action to evacuate people from the country.

Following these evacuations, ACS said it chartered aircraft over the next month to fly in a large amount of aid for the area.

"Following the significant damage caused to Guam, the American territory in the Western Pacific, by Typhoon Mawar in June, our teams across our North American offices were asked to transport humanitarian cargo including generators, water tanks, tractors and trucks," the ACS director of humanitarian and government services, added.

ACS also flew three charters of aid for wildfire victims across Hawaii in August.

In September, the aircraft charter company flew in more than 500 tonnes of aid for Libya following floods caused by Storm Daniel.

"This list by no means covers all of the emergency humanitarian charters that we did in 2023 but gives an idea of the breadth of charters arranged across the globe," Dinsdale said.

"Whilst the majority of the work in my role is supporting longer-term relief and development projects, which is ongoing, I am proud that our skillsets can be put to good use in these emergencies and help out in such tragic circumstances," he added.