For its seventh year running, the Trip support group AFRICAN OPEN SKY (AOS) has seen strong growth and increased demand, with traffic growing by 45% versus an overall average of around 30 percent for this sector throughout Africa. This strong growth has inspired the Cote d’Ivoire-based private company to consolidate its network across Africa by opening offices in Djibouti, Tanzania and Burundi in February and March 2015.
In addition to the above-mentioned locations, AOS, which was formed in 2009, today own a total of 18 offices in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome, Togo, and United Arab Emirates (the latter was opened especially to assist its expanding Middle Eastern client base). In all the company has more than 30 local representations across the continent. As AOS founder and CEO Max O Cisse notes, AOS is incontestably the Trip Support company with the most directly-owned offices.
As Max O Cisse, (named by THE EUROPEAN – CHASE PUBLISHING as the Aviation Business Personality of the Year 2014 – Africa) explains, “One of fundamental differences with other companies is that our offices are fully established as locally registered businesses and are approved by national civil aviation and airport authorities to coordinate flight operations. This certification is vitally important because local authorities consider support companies, effectively, to be the same as aircraft operators in terms of legal accountability for flights.”
He adds: “Since the legal consequences of breaching these regulations can be quite severe, it is vital for operators to have the expert assistance and support of a legally established local trip support company. Thanks to AOS, nothing is easier nowadays in Africa than getting short-notice permits or calling on an AOS supervisor who will be ready to arrange and pay all requested charges on behalf of a crew, even in countries known to be complicated,”
AOS’s main activity is rendering flight services to governmental, commercial, corporate, and private operators. The company provides its own handling supervisors network in each African country and assists customers with short notice permits plus technical, passenger or cargo ground-handling services. Other services include arranging transportation, hotel accommodation, catering, refueling, maintenance, aircraft security, flight planning, computerizing ATC, weather-NOTAMs, and all others services in connection with handling activities – at unbeatable prices and without a third-party commission