Titan Flies for Gambia Bird

UK charter provider and airline sub-charter specialist, Titan Airways, has secured a contract to support the flying activities of Gambia Bird after successfully completing short-term charter support for the carrier in September 2013. The London Stansted-based carrier will now provide Gambia Bird with a single Boeing 757-200 under a five month lease wet-lease deal.

Titan first operated on behalf of Gambia Bird for the first time in early September, providing short term ACMI coverage of operations from London Gatwick to airfields in Sierre Leone, Gambia, Senegal and Ghana. Since the successful completion of this initial three day contract the two carriers have been in talks about possible longer term cooperation.

The new deal, for the Boeing 757-200 will commence on November 11, 2013 and continue through the winter schedule until March 31, 2014. The aircraft - which is being specifically modified to accommodate 20 business class and 162 standard seats for its new role - will initially be operating thrice weekly between London Gatwick and Freetown in Sierre Leone. A further three flights between Gatwick and Accra in Ghana, are expected to be added to the weekly programme at a later date.

“We have built a strong industry reputation for airline sub-charter and aircraft leasing within Europe, but are less well known further afield, so we are thrilled with securing this new African business with Gambia Bird,” said Alastair Kiernan, commercial director, Titan Airways. “The Gambia Bird deal coupled with our ski charter flight programme mean that winter 13/14 is looking very promising for us.”

Titan regularly operates airline sub-charter flights on behalf of British Airways, British Airways Cityflyer, Aer Lingus, Thomas Cook Airlines, Monarch Airlines, Thomsonfly, Arke Fly, Jet 4 You, TUIfly, Condor, Transavia and easyJet. The carrier’s recently acquired Airbus A320 is now back on the sub-charter market following a summer of operations with Jet2.com from Newcastle International Airport.

Gambia Bird was established by German carrier Germania in October 2012 and mainly operates using an Airbus A319 leased from its parent on flights from Banjul International Airport to cities across the African ECOWAS region, including Accra, Ghana; Dakar, Senegal; Freetown, Sierra Leone and Monrovia, Liberia. Within Europe, as well as serving London, Gambia Bird also links Barcelona to Banjul, its only other Direct European link.

In the table below we highlight the ten largest O&D markets from Banjul International Airport in 2012.