OPS desk live · ACMI · Charter · Full-Service
WGA
WGA tarmac operations
Volume III · Air services · Doctrine of lift

Lift, sold
three ways.

ACMI for partners building seasonal capacity. Charter for the shipment that broke the plan. Full-Service for the route you'd rather not run yourself. Same fleet, same crews, same OPS desk — three commercial wrappers tuned to how your operation actually buys lift.

Plate I · WGA tarmac operations · Doncaster Sheffield
ACMI · Wet-lease block hours ·Charter · Single-mission lift ·Full-Service · End-to-end carriage ·E-commerce · Express · Forwarding · Government ·FAA Part 121 all-cargo ·The Can-Do Airline
§ Index

Three doctrines.
One certificate.
Same airline.

/01   ACMI

Wet-lease
capacity.

Aircraft. Crew. Maintenance. Insurance. Bolted onto your network for a week, a season, or a multi-year program. You set the schedule and the routing — we provide the metal and the people. Block-hour pricing keeps incentives aligned.

747-400F airborne
Plate II · B747-400F operating ACMI block · photographer Douwe van der zee /01 · ACMI
What's included

The four letters.

ACMI is shorthand. The letters spell out exactly what we deliver and exactly what stays with you. No surprises in the contract.

A
Aircraft
B747-400F or MD-11F equipment, drawn from a 19-tail roster.
C
Crew
Captains, first officers, loadmasters — Part 121, current, type-rated.
M
Maintenance
Line and heavy MX from our Blytheville, Arkansas facility.
I
Insurance
Hull, war risk, third-party — held against the WGA certificate.
Best for

Forwarders running peak-season programs

Q4 capacity, holiday surge, project freight — predictable block hours at fixed rates.

Best for

Integrators bridging fleet gaps

Cover routes during a phase-in, modification cycle, or unexpected grounding.

Best for

New entrants without an AOC

Carry your brand on our certificate while you build out your own operation.

/02   Charter

On-demand
heavy lift.

The shipment that broke the plan. The disaster that needs supplies airborne tonight. The oversized component the scheduled freighters refused. Charter is what we built the company to do — single-mission lift, taken seriously, priced to actually fly.

Cargo loading operations
Plate III · Cargo loading · photographer Richard Hazel /02 · Charter
Charter playbook

From call,
to airborne.

Our 24/7 operations desk is staffed by people who've actually loaded freighters at 3am. Tell us what you're moving, where, and by when. We'll come back with a plan you can decide against in minutes, not days.

Brief operations →
01
Brief

Origin, destination, weight, dimensions, dangerous-goods class, deadline. The information we need fits on one page — that's deliberate.

02
Plan

Aircraft selected, routing computed, slots and overflights identified. Ground handling lined up at both ends.

03
Quote

A number, not a range. Inclusive of crew, fuel, navigation, handling, and the contingency we'd plan against anyway.

04
Fly

Wheels-up. Live tracking to your operations desk. A loadmaster on the ground at both ends, signing for the freight.

Charter use cases
/A

Humanitarian

Relief supplies airborne within hours of an event. NGO and government tasking handled.

/B

Out-of-gauge

Items the scheduled freighters won't take. Engines, vehicles, modules — nose-loaded on the 747.

/C

Government / Defense

Approved military lift. CRAF participation. Diplomatic clearances coordinated in-house.

/D

Project Freight

Energy, mining, construction — multi-leg programs with awkward equipment and tight windows.

Hong Kong
/03   Full-Service

Door-to-door.

Sometimes you don't want to broker the freighter, the handler, the customs broker, and the trucking. Full-service is one carrier code, one accountable team, and one bill — origin pickup through final delivery, operating under WGA's certificate end-to-end.

What we own
  • +
    Origin handling

    Pickup, palletisation, ULD build-up, export documentation.

  • +
    Line-haul

    Operated on WGA equipment under our Part 121 certificate.

  • +
    Customs liaison

    Clearance coordination at both ends. Bonded warehousing where required.

  • +
    Onward delivery

    Final-mile trucking to consignee, with proof of delivery.

  • +
    SLA-backed on-time

    Performance guarantees written into the carriage contract.

Tarmac
Plate IV · 747-400F on stand · WGA tarmac
01
Carrier code
01
Bill
01
Team
§ Sectors served

Built for the awkward shipment.

Not every market needs us. The four below — e-commerce surge, express block hours, forwarding overflow, and government lift — are where the WGA model earns its premium.

/01 — E-commerce
CROSS-BORDER

Surge for the marketplaces.

Q4 consumer surge, post-event peaks, and continuous direct-from-factory programs. We move freight for the world's largest cross-border e-commerce networks under both ACMI and full-service wrappers.

/02 — Express
BLOCK-HOUR

The freighter under the livery.

Time-definite express networks rely on widebody capacity that flexes overnight. Our crews and tails sit behind several of the next-day brands you already know — quietly, reliably, on a block-hour basis.

/03 — Freight Forwarding
ALLOTTED · AD-HOC

Capacity, when the schedules break.

Forwarders use us three ways: allotments locked in for the year, ad-hoc charters when the project calls for it, and overflow when scheduled capacity sells out beneath them.

/04 — Government
CRAF · NGO

Approved lift for nation-state work.

Military movements, humanitarian relief, and sensitive government cargo. Approved CRAF carrier with the diplomatic clearance experience most ad-hoc operators don't carry.

§ The Brief, in detail

Common questions.

We've answered these about a thousand times. Skim before you call — or skip to the OPS desk.

Skip ahead → Brief operations
How quickly can WGA mobilise a charter? +

For domestic departures, hours. For international with overflight permits, the constraint is rarely the aircraft — it's the diplomatic clearance. Our OPS desk runs both clocks in parallel from the moment you call.

Do you carry dangerous goods? +

Yes. Our crews and ground teams are DG-rated. Class 1 and other restricted classes require advance notice — bring your shipper's declaration to the brief.

Can I run an ACMI program in my own livery? +

For multi-year programs, yes. We've operated under partner colours and call signs for major express, e-commerce, and forwarding brands. Shorter programs typically operate in WGA livery.

What's the difference between a 747-400F and an MD-11F charter for me? +

Volume and gauge. The 747-400F nose-loads, takes 90–110 tonnes, and handles oversized commercial freight no other airframe will. The MD-11F is the right answer for 60–90 tonne payloads, hot-and-high airfields, or routings the 747 is too aircraft for.

Are you a CRAF participant? +

Yes — WGA participates in the U.S. Civil Reserve Air Fleet program and holds approvals for U.S. government and allied military lift.

Where is heavy maintenance performed? +

In-house, at our heavy-maintenance facility in Blytheville, Arkansas. Both type ratings — 747-400F and MD-11F — and the common GE CF6-80C2 powerplant are supported under one roof.

MD-11F sunset
§ Brief the OPS desk

Tell us what's
moving.

Origin. Destination. Weight. Dimensions. Deadline. We'll come back with an aircraft, a crew, a routing, and a number — usually before the next ops shift starts at your end.