United States

ACS gearing up for largest ever FIFA World Cup

Following Friday evening’s World Cup draw, leading aircraft charter specialist, Air Charter Service, is gearing up for one of the most complex tournaments ever, in terms of logistics.

With more teams, more stadiums, across more countries and times zones than any previous World Cup the company is expecting a lot of people to turn to aircraft charters.

Alex Sadat-Shafai, ACS Group Commercial Director, and who was in Washington DC for the draw on Friday, commented: “With the tournament expanded from 32 to 48 teams, this will be the biggest World Cup ever, and the matches are in 16 stadiums, spread across four time zones, some more than 3,400 miles (5,500 km) apart.

"The largest single distance between stadiums is Vancouver to Miami, but that won’t happen in the group stages. There are several more stadium pairings that exceed 2,000 miles (3,200 km), making it a logistical nightmare, not just for the teams, but also the fans.

Alex Sadat-Shafai

“The sheer distance between some of the stadiums will mean that flying will be a necessity, and due to the lack of direct scheduled flights, charters will be essential. Some groups are kinder to the teams in them than others. Algeria and their fans, in Group J, have the longest distance to travel in the group stages - after their first game at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco they travel to Kansas’s Arrowhead Stadium, before heading back to San Francisco, racking up a total of 3,685 miles (5,930 km).

“When it comes to England’s group, they play Croatia at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, just outside Dallas, before travelling more than 1,800 miles (2,900 km) to the Gillette Stadium in Boston, to face Ghana. Based on current airlines’ schedules, there simply won’t be enough direct flights for fans to travel between the two cities in time.

“It is quite the turnaround from the tournament in Qatar three years ago, which was the least spread out of any previous World Cup with only 34 miles (55 km) separating the two stadiums furthest apart. Before that the competitions in Brazil and Russia were both very spread out, with some of the stadiums almost 2,000 miles from one another. This meant a lot of charters were needed, and for the 2018 tournament we arranged more than 350 flights.

“With more teams, more matches and greater distances, who knows how many charters this tournament will bring. We have already have several flights booked, and have been working with a number of clients, who are turning to ACS due to our unique position; as the only company in our industry with offices in all three countries and with presence in eight of the 16 host cities.”