Aircraft charters booming in Southeast Asia as region leaves the pandemic firmly in its wake
World-leading aircraft charter specialist, Air Charter Service, says that it has experienced a huge increase in demand for charters across Southeast Asia, especially when compared to pre-pandemic levels, as it currently stands at more than double that of 2019.
Stephen Fernandez, Director for ACS in the region, commented: “Across Southeast Asia, travel has been made significantly easier over the course of this year as the last few countries that had some form of Covid restrictions are allowing people to now travel more freely. This has meant an influx of enquiries for our offices in the region, and the booking figures for Southeast Asia are far higher than we have ever seen.
“For the year so far we have seen a 166% increase in enquiries and bookings on the pre-pandemic levels of 2019 for our passenger charter divisions. Part of our enhanced growth can be attributed to our Singapore office, which only opened its doors just prior to Covid, but we have also seen huge increases across the region, in particular in Philippines, Cambodia and Malaysia.
“This increase is significantly higher than the market average, with WingX’s latest figures confirming a 58% increase between January and September across the region. To put things into perspective a little, the US’s growth compared to pre-pandemic, over the same period, is just 11%; although the private aviation market in Southeast Asia is smaller than some of the rest of the world.”