The airfreight industry has been called into action multiple times around the world this year to charter planes into disaster regions, says Ben Dinsdale, Air Charter Service’s director for government and humanitarian services.
This year the industry has been busy assisting humanitarian operations in the Far East, Africa, the Middle East, Caribbean, as well as North and South America, in the aftermaths of a number of natural disasters and civil unrests.
In Papua New Guinea, there was a devastating landslide burying hundreds of homes in a remote community – the displaced survivors urgently needed shelter and medicines.
The worst flood Brazil had seen for 80 years caused widespread landslides and dam collapses, leaving at least 580,000 people displaced from their homes, and they needed shelter and medicinal supplies in the direct aftermath. And Hurricane Beryl hit the Caribbean hard, causing widespread damage to many of the islands in the area, leading to aid flights to the region, as well as evacuations.
Dinsdale said: “The civil collapse in Haiti has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and the escalating conflict of the Sudanese civil war has led to mass displacement for much of the population. Both situations have required multiple flights with shelter equipment. Most recently, following the invasion of Lebanon last month, the country has required a huge amount of aid flights, as well as multiple evacuations.”
For ACS, the Sudanese civil war led to a series of charters into Port Sudan and Ndjamena, in Chad, with the aid originating in Pakistan and the UAE, using a wide range of aircraft types. But the biggest operation this year has been over the past month or so, following the invasion of Lebanon. ACS has arranged more than 20 cargo flights carrying in over 600 tons of aid, as well as organising 30 evacuation charters, moving several thousand people out of the country.
Dinsdale concluded: “We have been involved with, and responded to, virtually every humanitarian logistical operation over the past few decades. In such situations we feel fortunate to be able to call on a hugely talented network of industry suppliers to deliver these complex operations around the world. This year has, once again, highlighted some of the vitally important work that the air charter industry delivers.”