The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the busiest ever event for UK-headquartered charter broker Air Charter Service (ACS), with almost 350 separate bookings across all five of its divisions during the month long tournament.

Group CEO Justin Bowman says: “We have handled many World Cups and sporting events before but this has been our largest ever single project involving many of our global offices and utilising all divisions of the company; group travel, private jets, cargo aircraft, onboard couriers as well as our travel and concierge department.

“We arranged 254 passenger charters on larger jets for a whole host of nations; we flew 25 per cent of the teams themselves plus fans, sponsors, media and football associations. We also arranged a huge number of private jets at all stages of the tournament, with many flying in to the final.

“Having two Russian offices benefitted us massively for the tournament; we had a team of more than 20 flight managers in the country over the duration, as well as our 24-hour operations team, keeping an eye on everything. Having Russian speakers and Russian bank accounts meant that even some other companies in our industry came to us for our expertise in the country.”