Air Contractors has grown considerably since its inception in 1972 as Air Bridge Carriers.  It was formed with four Argosy freighters to fly fresh produce from the Channel Islands to the UK.  This work was quickly supplemented by ad-hoc charter work, with special emphasis on 'awkward loads' such as aircraft engines and heavy machinery for the North Sea oil fields.

1976 saw the arrival of the first of the Merchantman aircraft.  This heralded an introduction to new markets such as fresh fruit flights through the Gulf and the Middle East and overnight newspaper flights.  At the beginning of the 1980s the overnight express parcels business was in its infancy within Europe and Air Bridge was ideally placed to take advantage.  TNT, FedEx, DHL and UPS were all nightly customers.

The fleet was enhanced further with the introduction of a fleet of Boeing 727 and Lockheed Electra aircraft (the majority of which were placed on the Irish register).  It was in 1992 that the Hunting group decided to re-brand all of its subsidiaries; Air Bridge changed overnight to Hunting Cargo Airlines, with a bold new look.

All of the airline's operations were transferred to Ireland in 1997, a year that saw the introduction of the first Airbus A300-B4 to the fleet.

In 1997 the Hunting group decided to sell off all its aviation-related companies.  In June 1998 it was announced that the airline had been sold to a consortium consisting of Compagnie Maritime Belge NV from Belgium and Safair (Pty) Ltd from South Africa (part of the Imperial group). This prompted a change of name to Air Contractors.

2007 saw Imperial (parent of Safair) transfer it's shareholdings to CMB and 3P Airfreighters (Petercam Group).

Air Contractors now almost exclusively operates within the overnight express integrator and postal arena, providing short to medium range freighter capacity to the integrated parcel carriers.  With a large fleet of ATR aircraft it is well placed to continue as one of the leading providers to the industry, well into the twenty first century.

Recently, in 2008 the Group was expanded with the acquisition of Paris based Europe Airpost which operates a fleet of Boeing 737 QC aircraft on both freight and passenger routes. Subsequently the group was renamed ASL Aviation Group.