Air Partner has opened a specialist cargo department at its Milan office in Italy as part of its strategic expansion plan to develop its worldwide freight charter services.

This comes a year after the aircraft broker's launch of a dedicated freight department within its US operation and two years after the opening of Air Partner Freight in Turkey.

The Air Partner group now has specialist freight teams in nine of its 21 worldwide locations based at the company's UK HQ and in France, Germany, Japan, Dubai, Hong Kong, Turkey, the US and now Italy.

"We are confident this was the right time to add a permanent local freight presence in Italy, despite the current economic uncertainty in Europe," said Regional Freight Manager Mike Hill. "In addition to our well-established passenger charter services, our transient Italian freight business has been growing at a healthy rate for many years.

"Air Partner's ability to provide local expert knowledge 24/7 is a key factor when clients choose to appoint us as their partner for bespoke aviation charter requirements. Additionally, the recent European launch of our Time Critical product and its tailormade real-time RedTrack door-to-door freight tracking system allows us to offer this new service to Italian clients, including those in the automotive and aerospace logistic sectors."

The company's newly-appointed Milan-based freight manager is aviation specialist Domenico Di Roberto. Throughout his career he has held senior sales and commercial director positions at Air Mauritius, Turkish airlines, TWA, Pescara Airport, Italy's Baltour travel group, and Skylink Aviation.

"Air Partner has been trading for 50 years and over the last 14 the company has established an international reputation as a 'go now' specialist able to meet every request, even those involving flights into remote areas and outsize loads," he said. "The company continues to evolve and I am looking forward to the challenge of developing relationships within the diverse Italian freight sector."

In the financial year to 31 July 2011, Air Partner Freight's client numbers in the industrial and commercial sector increased by 19 per cent.