With the World Cup Draw now completed, leading
aircraft charter specialist, Air Charter Service, says that aircraft charters
will be an essential part of logistics for the FIFA World Cup in Russia next
year, but there is a race to secure charter aircraft.
Group Director of ACS’s Commercial Jets
division, Matthew Purton,
commented: “The 2018 championship in Russia throws up a variety of problems with
regards to getting people around. Russia is a huge country and the distance
between England’s last two group matches is more than 1,000 miles. Driving
between Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad is a long coach ride! With only Russian
registered airlines being able to perform domestic flights in the country, this
drastically limits the choice of aircraft able to transport the teams and fans
from hotels and training camps to matches. At some of the slightly smaller
airports involved next year, Russian speakers will be needed as the locals will
not speak enough English to help with the specific requirements needed for such
detailed flight programmes. |
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Matthew Purton |
“Fortunately we had an excellent ‘practice
run’ with the Confederations Cup in June and July of this year, for which ACS
flew in five of the eight teams involved and made a lot of good contacts. I
believe that we are in the best possible position to offer clients the best
solutions for next year - we have two offices in Russia, one in Moscow and one
in St. Petersburg. A quarter of the 40 matches in the tournament will be played
in those two cities. The fact that we have a Russian bank account will mean
easier transactions than those companies using Dollars, Euros or Sterling and we
will be looking to position some of our experts on site at the airports to make
sure everything runs smoothly.
“Now that the draw is complete for Russia
2018, football associations, supporter groups, sponsors, media and the teams
themselves now know where they will need to get to during the tournament and are
rushing to secure the limited number of aircraft available.”
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