Reason for charter: Pipeline inauguration
When you’ve spent $3.6 billion on constructing a 1,700km pipeline crossing three countries, the ‘turning on of the tap’ ceremony is a significant event. Air Partner chartered two Boeing 737s and a 757 to undertake 13 flights for 500 passengers over three days moving guests between the three countries involved and VIPs from London to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. A private jet also flew an advance party of managers to the inauguration event. In total, the aircraft flew 23,500 nautical miles for the oil giant.
Reason for charter: North Sea shuttle saved
Anticipating aviation problems and devising possible solutions is an everyday task at Air Partner. When a troubled airline which routinely shuttled oil company workers between Aberdeen and the Shetland Islands was grounded, we already had replacement aircraft on standby should we be asked to assist. We were … and in less than 24 hours we launched two BAe 146s to keep the vital link open. A third aircraft joined soon afterwards and between them the jets operated up to seven rotations a day every weekday carrying up to 65 passengers at a time, sometimes in severe weather. More than 600 sectors were flown.
Reason for charter: Providing reliable escape routes
Bomb blasts in Africa’s Niger Delta resulted in Air Partner implementing three emergency flights to extract 500 expatriates from life-threatening militant activity. The logistics were particularly challenging as aircraft availability at the time was almost non-existent, but prompt action by the company’s Commercial Jets and Emergency Planning teams ensured the group left within 24 hours. The flights were further evidence of Air Partner’s success in providing a reliable escape route for expatriate employees in high-risk areas around the globe. In 2007, the company extracted almost 9,000 evacuees from global hotspots.
