January 4 - Clive Chalmers, UK manager of freight at UK-headquartered Air Partner, explains that the start of 2013 will present challenges for the air charter broker market:

"As flagged in July, the air charter market for freight continues to be under pressure; any signs of recovery have been delayed in line with the continuing downturn in the global economy, and we see this trend continuing into the early part of 2013."

Chalmers (pictured below) only expects the demand for scheduled charter service to rise when there is an upturn in consumer demand: "The scheduled service carriers tend to reduce their frequencies or withdraw capacity from many routes in response to weak global demand. As such, we would expect opportunities for charter to arise when early improvements in demand can only be met by placing additional, chartered capacity onto the routes.

"We said at the end of last year that opportunities continue to exist for charter brokers within the industry, and Air Partner anticipates that this requirement for air charter, specifically in niche areas will continue into 2013.

Chalmers noted that opportunities continue to exist for charter brokers, particularly in niche areas as 2013 develops. "One area in which we do anticipate seeing signs of recovery is the Far East, particularly within the manufacturing sector, as demand for consumer goods picks up," he added.

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