Irish-based ASL Aviation Group, a leading air capacity sub-contractor for the express and postal industry, is gearing up for future growth with the launch of a single brand ‘ASL Airlines’ for its four European airlines.
ASL said the ‘Platform for Growth’ strategy, which follows the acquisition of Switzerland’s Farnair Group last year, aims to build on its leading role in various express integrator, passenger and postal markets in Europe. The single brand would enable operational synergies while increasing the competitiveness of the individual airlines.
The four European airlines currently operate cargo flights throughout Europe for the leading express integrators (mostly DHL and UPS) as well as for France’s La Poste and other postal operators, along with other cargo services and diverse passenger flights. ASL hit the headlines when it was lined up to buy TNT Airways as part of the planned UPS takeover of the Dutch group, and there has been speculation that it could again be a potential buyer of the airline under FedEx’s agreed acquisition of TNT.
Explaining the new brand strategy, ASL CEO Hugh Flynn said: “Our intent is to have a new strong single brand that will play a major role in helping us to achieve our vision and mission and reflect our corporate values in our business. This strong single brand will make it considerably easier to use the aircraft of the European fleet across the individual countries to meet customer demand and this increased fleet flexibility and consequent competitiveness will enable us to grow our business.”
Under the single brand strategy, Irish-based Air Contractors will become ASL Airlines Ireland; French carrier Europe Airport will become ASL Airlines France; Farnair Switzerland will become ASL Airlines Switzerland; and Farnair Hungary will re-brand to ASL Airlines Hungary. In future, there will be four operational ‘centres of excellence’ in Ireland, France, Switzerland and Hungary, each specialising in operating different aircraft types.
This means that 75 Europe-based planes out of the group’s c. 100-strong fleet will take to the air as ‘ASL Airlines’ in future. Some of these aircraft will be painted in airline customer colours while the rest will soon start to become visible in Europe’s airports in the new ASL Airlines livery.
ASL will also expand its global presence through its interest in Safair in South Africa and cargo airlines K-Mile in Thailand and QuikJet in India where its shareholding is to increase to 72.59%. These carriers will retain their existing names. QuikJet is due to launch domestic B737 cargo flights in India in the near future.
A fifth operations ‘centre of excellence’ in South Africa will oversee the continued growth in Safair, the specialist humanitarian Hercules operator; FlySafair, South Africa’s first ‘true’ low cost airline launched in October 2014 and the two Asian airlines.
ASL will have two divisions in future, ‘European Airlines’ and ‘Rest of the World Airlines and Leasing’. Air Contractors CEO Colin Grant will head the European airline division, while Safair chief Dave Andrew will head the overseas activities. The ASL Group, with 1,500 employees globally, will continue to be based near Dublin.
