ABSTRACT
The world of aircraft charter broking has changed enormously in the 50 years that I have been a part of it, writes Chris Chapman, one of the co-founders of global broker Chapman Freeborn.
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When I started, the broker was very much the ‘post offi ce’, literally taking the enquiry from the would-be charterer and asking the airline for a quote and passing the quote back to the client and retaining a commission for his pains. In those days the centre of the broking world was the Baltic Exchange; beyond that in cities like Hamburg and Rotterdam there were other brokers. There was a reason – a large part of the work of a broker was the movement of urgent ships spares for a vessel that had broken down. Of course, there were also passenger requests – some for ships crews and others for what was still a travel industry, although still in its infancy.
