October 31 - Air Charter Service has reported strong growth in its latest results covering the first half of its 2011-2012 annual results (February 1 - July 31 2011).

The air charter broker reported revenues up by 20 percent from GBP112 million (USD180.6 million) to GBP134 million (USD216 million).

The company stated that it arranged almost 3,000 charter contracts in the first six months of the year - an increase of around 20 percent on the previous year.

ACS chairman, Chris Leach (pictured below) commented: "All three of our divisions; Cargo, Commercial Jets and Executive Jets, showed very strong growth last year, and our international operations all performed well. This can be attributed to increasing our market share by expanding into new markets with the openings of new offices - we have opened in São Paulo and Los Angeles this year. The results have certainly been boosted by the huge number of evacuation flights that we arranged for expatriates from Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Japan in the first few months of this year, however the underlying growth is still strong, despite the uncertain world economy. By continuing to expand our foreign operations, now almost 60 percent of our turnover is generated from our overseas offices.""

Leach concluded: "This continued growth is testament to the hard work of our staff and the successful implementation of a number of management strategies - we are a cash rich company and reinvest heavily in our training and the well-being of our staff - which explains our exceptionally low staff turnover and place in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For list.

"Early results suggest that our traditionally stronger second half of the year is looking very positive already and we are on course to exceed 6,000 charters and GBP280 million (USD451.5 million) turnover come the end of the (financial) year."