Air Charter Service flies 16,000 fans to the Rugby World Cup

Leading aircraft charter specialist, Air Charter Service, has completed more than 100 charter flights and flown more than 16,000 rugby fans to and from the World Cup in France over the past two months.

Matthew Purton, Group Charter Director at ACS, commented: “The plans for the logistics of this World Cup started for us almost two and a half years ago, early in the summer of 2021. Following the initial planning stage, we started taking our first bookings as early as January last year, although some customers were still booking flights for the group stages in late August this year.

“As teams progressed in the tournament we, naturally, received more requests for those fans to fly to the later games. Over the course of the seven-week tournament we chartered flights into and out of eight different airports in France ferrying 16,000 rugby fans to and from matches. We used a variety of aircraft, including Airbus A320s, A321s and A330-200s, as well as Boeing B737-700s, -800s and -900s.

“Some of the obstacles we had to overcome were the French air traffic control strikes, bad weather and the sheer busyness at the French airports, which were working at full capacity on some match days, meaning slots and aircraft handling were a constant challenge, at some airports more than others.

“Fortunately, we had ACS staff on the ground at all airports every matchday, ensuring everything ran as smoothly as it could and, when possible, they were able to personalise the flights with things such as bespoke headrest covers.”