The charter business has a wide scope, not only transporting medical equipment, gold, but also remains.

 

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Editor’s note: Almost all commercial aircraft have been grounded worldwide. Flights have been cancelled in succession, borders have been closed, and the future of the aviation industry is bleak. Many small airlines will close before the epidemic is completely over. But at the same time, the charter business worldwide is extremely prosperous. In addition to the governments of various countries, charter flights include private wealthy individuals. The delivered materials included not only emergency medicine, gold bars, but also the remains of the dead. Faced with high shipping prices, why did these customers make such a decision? This article is from Medium, author Chris Stokel-Walker, original title “Charter Flights are the Secret Transportation of the Rich and Powerful”.

From Unsplash | Photography Ramon Kagie

Key points:

  1. The main source of aircraft charter business: governments of various countries, rich people, gold companies, and the dead who insist on “soul returning home”.

    2.  

  2. The cost of charter flights is $11,000, and the fees charged for charter flights range from $50,000 to $200,000.

  3. At the moment when passenger airplanes are grounded, the charter business carries the important task of maintaining smooth global logistics.

Government charter flights to pick up citizens to return home

Over the past few months, global passenger flights have been cancelled, but the charter service has not been interrupted. Some of these planes are contracted by the state and are responsible for transporting emergency medical supplies; others are contracted by private tycoons and are responsible for transporting some of the goods that need to be transferred.

When a disaster strikes, you will find out what people really care about—the things they really care about are the things they are going to transport on the plane.

Justin Lancaster, chief commercial officer of Air Charter Service, said they used to arrange 23,000 flights to customers each year. After the World Health Organization announced the new coronavirus as a global epidemic in March this year, their business volume began to grow.

But when countries began to block the border, Lancaster was panicked again. These countries include Italy, which is the epicenter of Europe (although the severity of the US epidemic has surpassed Italy since April)-Italy blocked the border line from March 9 and caused a chain reaction around the world. Lancaster recalled: “Because of the blockade, people had to land to other designated places.”

Because of the epidemic, the charter business has become increasingly popular. In the case of cancellation of many commercial flights, governments of various countries will charter flights to pick up citizens to return home. During the week of late April, the British government picked up people from Peru, the American government picked up from Switzerland, the Greek government picked up from Germany, the Russian government picked up from Italy, and the UAE government picked up from India. In March alone, Germany has chartered 60 flights to take back 42,000 citizens.

For individuals, charter flights with tens of thousands of dollars are really unaffordable. The New York Times reported that an American couple trapped in the Maldives because of the epidemic was forced to stay there because they refused to pay $100,000 in charter costs.

But some companies still choose charter flights to solve their urgent needs. At present, Air Charter Service has successfully brought back South American workers working in African mines to the country, and also transported passengers trapped on cruise ships near the Caribbean .

The rich chartered a flight to take refuge in “Other Places”

For Lancaster and his colleagues, the biggest challenge is not to find a suitable departure point, because most airports are not closed now. The biggest challenge is to collect and organize the chaotic travel of various countries Restrictions. Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, are still opening their borders. But the borders like Italy are firmly closed. Australia does not allow transit within its borders, and France only allows its citizens to return to their home countries.

After Trump announced the blockade of the border with Europe on March 11, many passenger airlines’ schedules were disrupted. According to information provided by Cirium, a data analysis company for the air travel industry, two-thirds of the world’s aircraft have been grounded. In Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, almost all aircraft are grounded. Under the guidance of US policy, several routes in the Asia-Pacific region have been retained, although the number of routes and passenger capacity are much less than before the outbreak.

So far, most people have returned to a fixed place, and the vast majority of people no longer travel on business or travel (special case: there are currently 150 Romanian vegetable pickers, and they paid $50,000 in April Charter flights to the UK). But the charter business has never been interrupted, and you can still fly at any time as long as you can afford it. For example, in April, when France and the EU severely restricted crossing the border, a Croatian businessman chartered a flight back to London from the French Riviera. There were 10 passengers on the plane, including men in their 40s and 50s and women in their early 20s. According to French television reports, 9 of these 10 people successfully returned to the UK, and another stranded passenger eventually transferred from Berlin. Lancaster said that the cost of this charter is $11,000.

Global logistics is interrupted, passenger aircraft become cargo aircraft

In addition to charter flights for the rich and celebrities, medical supplies and medicines sometimes need to be transported by charter.

Before the outbreak, the passenger plane took on most of the tasks of transporting cargo. In the past, these goods to be transported were put in the warehouse together with the passenger’s luggage and transported to all parts of the world. Although the profit of transporting these goods only accounts for 2% of the airline’s total profit, it has a significant impact on global logistics. Aviation analyst John Strickland said: “In the past, the larger passenger aircraft could hold at least 20 tons of cargo. Now we see that 90% or 100% of flights have been cancelled, so there is no such cargo. The channel has been transported.”

According to the data given by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), global passenger planes can carry 52 million tons of cargo each year, accounting for 35% of global trade. Starting two months earlier, the number of passengers on international flights has shrunk, and the ability of passenger aircraft to carry cargo has also declined.

Alexandre de Juniac, President and CEO of the International Air Transport Association, warned: “With the current number of flights, we cannot meet the needs of air transport. This problem needs to be resolved because Global emergency supplies are ultimately transported by flight.”

Airlines lacking passengers decided to open some routes, not carrying passengers, but only carrying cargo. Some airlines have removed seats in the aircraft to load more cargo, such as Lufthansa and El-Al. The freight volume of these modified aircraft increased from 20 tons to 50 tons. Other airlines decided to tie the cargo box to the passenger’s seat instead of removing the seat.

Antonov AN-22, the world’s largest cargo plane, completed a series of transportation missions in the context of the new crown epidemic. During the epidemic, it departed from Tianjin and went to Kazakhstan, Ukraine, France and Germany to transport various materials and medicines. In addition, Ukrainian Airlines’ Antonov transport planes flew to Canada, Qatar, Kuwait and Slovakia. In the past two months, these cargo planes have transported more than 11,000 tons of cargo, most of which are anti-epidemic equipment. Lancaster said that the price of charter flights is becoming more and more expensive. For example, it costs US$1 million to ship 100 tons of cargo from Europe to China.

Chartered delivery of gold bars

In addition to anti-epidemic materials, airlines also leave a little space for private cargo delivery, and these private customers decided to transport gold bars by plane.

Simon Mikhailovich, the founder of Bullion Reserve, an international gold investment company, said: “Normally, the task of transporting gold is carried out by passenger aircraft. Gold can be hidden in hiding, without It occupies a lot of space. You can easily transport millions of dollars of gold in passenger aircraft. Gold is small and not heavy, so the cost of transportation is not high. But now the number of passenger aircraft is drastically decreasing, you can imagine shipping gold Becomes a difficult thing.”

The stagnation of the aviation industry has affected the global gold supply chain. On March 20, after the Italian border was completely blocked, Swiss people who usually needed to cross the border to work in Italy were forced to lose their jobs. Overnight, the company responsible for supplying one-third of the world’s gold closed.

Since the beginning of April, some refineries have reopened, but the ability to extract gold is less than 50% of the original, which has caused the price of gold to skyrocket. The price of gold in the United States has reached its highest level in eight years, and the price of gold in Europe has never been higher. Gold companies had to charter planes to ship gold, which also increased to some extentThe cost of transportation. Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault, an online gold trading platform, said: “The epidemic has left the days of low-cost gold transport.”

During the epidemic, it took a long time for people to respond, and they began to abandon the currency and switch to gold trading. On BullionVault’s March and April platform information, the number of gold transactions and the number of new account registrations both reached a peak. The London Bullion Market Association, which is responsible for operating the world’s major gold trading markets, pointed out that the current practice of charter charter shipping of gold is becoming more common, although the cost of this method is much higher than before.

$200,000 charter fee, but also to return home

But some things are more important than money. For example, take the body of the deceased person home.

Daniel Sebuliba died unexpectedly at the age of 30. He is a Ugandan and worked in Qatar during his lifetime. His body was then loaded into a plane to Entebbe, Uganda, and landed on April 19. It is not known whether Sebliba died of new coronary pneumonia. The Ugandan Red Cross said that his autopsy was negative. Later, his body was transported to his hometown, and the eight entourage responsible for escorting the body were isolated. Analysts pointed out that there are still many cases like Sebliba that transported their bodies back to China by charter flights during the new crown epidemic.

The route of this aircraft carrying the body is very unstable. When it departs from one place, it will stop at various places and be responsible for picking up the body of the dead. Sometimes a flight can take 22 hours to complete. According to a blogger in the aviation industry, religious belief is the biggest driving force behind the return of the soul. For example, many Jews hope to be buried in their motherland no matter where they lived.

This type of charter service for transporting corpses usually costs $200,000, but the high cost does not stop them. According to data from the Ministry of Religion in Israel, between mid-March and mid-April, a total of 151 bodies returned to Israel by charter or private jet.

Empty airports and parking lots, flightless planes, layoff pilots and flight attendants… At present, despite the overall downturn in the aviation industry, there are still some aircraft that continue to operate to help people transport all kinds of cargo, including lifesaving Materials, gold and even the remains, and people in this industry also seized this opportunity to obtain a benefit from the desperate situation.

Translator: Michiko