As the aviation market in Europe continues to boom in the post-pandemic era, demand for wet lease arrangements continues to boom too. One charter airline from Romania, Dan Air, has secured contracts to wet lease its entire fleet this summer.

Dan Air secures contracts for all its capacity

After two years of grounded aircraft and surplus capacity, the wet lease market is once again heating up.

A particularly strong driving force for wet lease contracts in Europe this summer is the rapid spike in demand as a result of countries opening up from COVID-19 restrictions, coupled with the inability of passenger airlines to hire enough staff to operate as many flights as there is demand for.

Dan Air of Romania is one airline capitalizing on this development. It has secured contracts to wet lease its three Airbus A320 and one Airbus A319 aircraft this summer to various airlines in need of extra capacity, Boarding Pass reports.

1_Air Serbia (1)
Air Serbia is going to double daily services to Ljubljana this winter. Photo: Air Serbia

All four aircraft will fly until this autumn

Dan Air’s sole Airbus A319, registered as YR-URS, will fly for Air Serbia this summer. Air Serbia is wet leasing multiple aircraft this summer as it embarks on a major expansion.

Meanwhile, Dan Air will wet lease the three Airbus A320s as follows: one will go to Jazeera Airways, one will go to Air Arabia Maroc, and one will go to Transavia. Dan Air has already flown for both Jazeera Airways and Transavia before. In fact, its A319 was flying for Transavia up until 15th May this year.

Transavia Boeing 737
Photo: Getty Images

On that day, the aircraft operated flight HV5041 from Amsterdam (AMS) to Kos (KGS) in Greece and back as flight HV5042. This same flight is now operated for Transavia by a whole string of airlines under wet lease arrangements. For example, yesterday, 29th May 2022, it was a Boeing 737 by AlbaStar, an airline based in Spain. One day earlier, on 28th May, it was operated by an Airbus A321 from Fly2Sky Airlines, a charter airline based in Bulgaria. Other airlines that have flown this route for Transavia this month alone were its parent airline, KLM, and an Italian airline called Neos.

Who is Dan Air?

Dan Air was created in 2021 when it was re-branded from Just Us Air which was founded as a company in 2017. Just Us Air was based in Bucharest’s Craiova Airport (CRA), and it received its AOC from the Romanian Aviation Authority in 2018.

According to our data from ch-aviation, the airline is awaiting delivery of an Airbus A330-300 aircraft that is currently undergoing maintenance. It is 20 years old, having been delivered to SAS Scandinavian Airlines in October 2002, and with whom it has been ever since. It is now owned by Aviator Capital, a commercial aircraft leasing company based in Florida.

Historically, Dan Air also used to have an Airbus A321, registered as YR-NTS. This aircraft has been with Dan Air since its founding as Just Us Air, and it previously flew for British Midland International and Monarch Airlines.

What do you think of aircraft wet lease agreements? Let us know what you think of this story in the comments.

Source: BoardingPass.ro and ch-aviation