Air Charter Service has seen strong growth in the first quarter of its financial year, with private jet revenue climbing 19.2 per cent compared with the same period in 2023.

The rise was driven by a number of low value, high volume contracts involving multiple daily flights across continents, which ACS says made comparisons with last year misleading. Even without these, flight numbers still rose by 13.3 per cent.

Founder and chairman Chris Leach says: “We are delighted with performance across the board at this stage of the year [our financial year starts on February 1st], but particularly happy with private jets, which saw a significant increase in revenue, up by 19.2%.

“We've been fortunate enough to acquire a number of low value, high volume contracts, with multiple daily flights on different continents. These have massively inflated our total private jet charter numbers, making them incomparable to the same period last year. However, if you take these contracts out, our underlying flight numbers have still increased by 13.3%, which is particularly pleasing when compared to the industry average, which only saw small growth over the first quarter of the year.”

He adds: “With regards to the rest of the year, we are probably in the most uncertain period since Covid, and it is impossible to foresee the impact of various geo-political situations in the world on the charter market. However, with our global footprint, diverse businesses and portfolio of clients we are as well-placed as any company to deal with any fallout they may cause.”

Revenue from the cargo and group charter divisions also rose, helping take overall group revenue to $280 million for the February to April 2024 period, up 8 per cent.