The German holiday airline Condor is relying on the services of other airlines to a greater extent in the current 2022 summer timetable period. These fly under wet lease agreements on behalf of the holiday airline.
Specifically, Condor has leased aircraft from European Air Charter , Bulgaria Air, Sundair, and Heston Airlines. These leased aircraft will operate from various German airports. Some of them are also – at least subtly – painted in the new livery of the client airline. For example, there are already Airbus jets from European Air Charter and Bulgaria Air that feature stripes on their tails.
Heston Airlines has been newly contracted by Condor. The Vilnius-based airline is a new company that only obtained its Air Operator Certificate (AOC) and operating license last year . Its fleet consists of six aircraft: three Airbus A320s and three Airbus A330-200s . According to CH-Aviation.com, the average age of the fleet is 14,7 years.
Eurowings and Eurowings Discover also rely on ACMI service providers
Condor is not alone in its increased use of wet-leased aircraft. Competitor Eurowings secured five Airbus A220-300s for this summer season , which are operated by Air Baltic from Düsseldorf. Furthermore, eleven A320s from Avion Express Malta fly for the Lufthansa subsidiary from Stuttgart and Düsseldorf. In addition, there are aircraft operated by Tuifly as well as jets that are deployed on an ad-hoc charter basis at short notice.
Eurowings Discover, the sister airline of the Lufthansa Group, is also utilizing other airlines' services. Two Airbus A220-300s from Air Baltic will begin operating short- and medium-haul flights for the newest Lufthansa subsidiary starting in May 2022. Around the same time, Finnair will begin operating long-haul flights for Eurowings Discover. Flight schedule data indicates that destinations including Las Vegas and Tampa will be served by this aircraft type. The long-haul jets from the Oneworld member will operate from both Frankfurt and Munich. The necessary application has already been submitted to the US Department of Aviation (DoT). This application is required to allow codesharing within the Lufthansa Group to extend to wet-lease flights.