ASL Airlines Ireland
ASL Airlines Limited, formerly Air Contractors, is a freight and passenger airline. It operates scheduled freight services throughout Europe on behalf of major integrators such as FedEx Feeder and DHL Express; and operates unscheduled passenger air charter flights, as well as some wet lease services for scheduled airlines. ASL Airline Holdings Limited, the parent company of ASL Airlines Ireland, has its head office at 3 Malahide Road, Swords, County Dublin, Ireland.
History
The airline was established and started operations in 1972, as Air Bridge Carriers at East Midlands Airport. In September 1992 the name Hunting Cargo Airlines was adopted and in 1997 the transfer of all airline operations to Ireland was completed. In June 1998 the Hunting Group sold its aviation arm to a joint consortium of CMB Compagnie Maritime Belge and Safair and the airline was rebranded Air Contractors.The Imperial Group transferred its 49% shareholding in the company to 3P Air Freighters/Petercam S.A. in 2007.
Air Contractors acquired French carrier Europe Airpost on 14 March 2008. Following the acquisition of EAP into the ACL group of companies, the group was rebranded ASL Aviation Group, representing the three core activities of the group; Airlines, Support and Leasing.
In 2010 Air Contractors entered a new era with the start of passenger flying on a Boeing 737-300 aircraft in conjunction with its Group partner, Europe Airpost.
On 4 June 2015, ASL Aviation Group announced that Air Contractors would be rebranded as ASL Airlines Ireland, Europe Airpost as ASL Airlines France, Farnair Hungary as ASL Airlines Hungary and Farnair Switzerland as ASL Airlines Switzerland.
The company announced on 5 February 2016 that it had agreed to buy TNT Airways and PAN Air, on the condition that FedEx's purchase of TNT goes ahead. The sale went through in May 2016. TNT Airways became ASL Airlines Belgium and Pan Air became ASL Airlines Spain. In early 2017, ASL Aviation group rebranded as ASL Airline Holdings.
Subsidiary ASL Airlines Switzerland ceased all operations on 1 February 2018, while ASL Airlines Spain ceased all operations in August of that same year.
Fleet
The ASL Airlines Ireland fleet consists of the following aircraft as of January 2020:ASL Airlines Ireland had been operating converted A330 aircraft in Hong Kong on behalf of Air Hong Kong. An A330-300/P2F and A330-200/P2F have since been transferred to Air Hong Kong's own AOC. A third aircraft remains under ASL Airlines Ireland's own AOC. A fourth aircraft is being converted by EFW in Dresden but it in unknown when this will arrive in Hong Kong. The operation is running behind schedule and all aircraft were due to be transferred to Air Hong Kong at the end of 2019.
| Aircraft | In Fleet | Orders | Notes |
| Airbus A300-600F | 4 | — | Operated for DHL Aviation |
| Airbus A330-200F | 1 | — | Operated for DHL Aviation |
| Airbus A330-300F | 2 | — | Operated for DHL Aviation |
| ATR 42-300F | 5 | — | Operated for FedEx Express |
| ATR 72-200F | 11 | — | |
| ATR 72-200F | 5 | — | Operated for FedEx Express |
| ATR 72-500F | 2 | — | |
| Boeing 737-400F | 8 | — | |
| Boeing 737-800/BCF | — | 2 | To be leased from GECAS |
| Boeing 757-200 | 1 | — | Operated for Aer Lingus, to be withdrawn by Q2 2020 |
| Total | 39 | 2 |