Acropolis Aviation, the UK VVIP executive charter operator based at Farnborough Airport, is pleased to formally welcome Mark Bird as Ground Operations Manager.

Mark joins Acropolis from Air Tanker, the PFI initiative formed by Airbus, Babcock, Rolls/Royce, Thales and Cobham, operating 14 Airbus A330-200 Voyager aircraft. At Air Tanker, Mark was based out of Brize Norton as an Operations Duty Manager for five years, managing the worldwide day-to-day operations of both civil and military aircraft and managing multi-role operations, liaising with commercial airlines, representatives of the Government and the Royal Flight. 

"Mark is a welcome addition to our team with his multi-faceted operational experience gained in commercial airline, freight and airport operations," said Acropolis CEO Jonathan Bousfield.

After three decades in the RAF acquiring the discipline of getting a job done well, on time, working as part of a team, Mark's follow-on commercial roles included being a member of the executive team behind the service launch of African regional carrier Fly Africa. He served as airport manager of Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan, moving from DHL, where as Operations Manager, he was responsible for the Middle East region.

"Acropolis Aviation is an established, highly regarded luxury charter operator and joining its team is a great privilege," said Mark. "It is a very exciting time in Acropolis' history as we prepare for the arrival of G-KELT in the coming months." The industry's first ACJ320neo is currently undergoing cabin outfitting to Acropolis' unique Alberto Pinto design at AMAC Aerospace's Basel, Switzerland facility.

New Flight Planning System - from Myairops

An early priority for Mark is to oversee the introduction of a next-generation flight planning solution, which comes on line in November. The system is being introduced ahead of the ACJ320neo's arrival. Following a comprehensive evaluation across various alternative suppliers, Acropolis opted to renew with myairops in a nod to its attractive new features and its ease of use between Acropolis' UK and US operations.

"We're pleased to appoint myairops as our new flight operations software providers. myairops Flight was selected owing to its highly protective security of data, GDPR compliance, ease of data migration and HMI design." said Mark Bird.  "We're looking forward to a long-term collaboration," he added.

Part of the Gama Aviation Group of companies, myairops is a full aviation ecosystem providing SaaS (Software as a Service) and mobile app solutions to manage flight and ground operations, handling, FBO and CAMO needs. It will deliver full flexibility when integrating Acropolis Aviation's other systems, providing a versatile and comprehensive solution for their operations.

Contributed by Acropolis Aviation