Charter demand between Thailand and Cambodia has surged in recent weeks after the border between the countries was closed due to fighting.
Air Charter Service (ACS) said that it has been “exceptionally busy” over the past month and has arranged almost 100 charter flights carrying around 5,000 tons of cargo.
Brendan Toomey, chief executive of ACS Singapore, said: “The closure of the Thailand-Cambodia border meant that all road transport stopped immediately, leading to significant logistical disruptions across multiple industries which rely heavily on the cross-border supply chain.
”Just-in-time manufacturers especially started to run up costs, meaning they needed to find alternative solutions quickly to maintain operations and prevent shutdowns.
“It was at this point that several customers came to us for cargo charter flights as a solution to the headache. At first there was a lot of automotive cargo that needed to move, sometimes 100 tons at a time, but soon after we started receiving requests for consolidated cargo flights consisting of goods from multiple industries."
Toomey said the flights have been loaded in both directions and have been operating between Bangkok in Thailand and either Siem Reap or Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
Restrictions on the border between the two countries have been in place since June after armed clashes between the two countries erupted in May.
On Monday, officials from the two countries began four days of talks aimed at bringing the conflict to an end.
