In passing, I often talk about airline wet lease agreements. I understand some OMAAT readers know exactly what that is, while others may have no clue. So in this post I’d like to talk about that in a bit more detail — what is an airline wet lease agreement, how do airlines benefit from it,…
Continue reading: What Are Airline Wet Lease Agreements? What About Dry & Damp Leases?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
There's a problem loading the comments on the sidebar. This has been happening since a few days ago.
The only way to open it, as I did here, is by clicking the button to write a new comment.
@ ak_22 -- I appreciate it, and we're troubleshooting and working on getting this fixed. Thanks for your patience! 🙂
The workaround (at least for me) is to be on Ben's main page, with all of the tiled blog posts/stories. Click on the comment icon for the particular post/story you're interested in, and it will open the comments window. YMMV.
It can be a bit disorientating. Next week I have a KLM flight between Scotland and Amsterdam operated by, er, German Airways.
I thought I was the only one. Thanks for the tip on how to open the comments 🙂
Thanks Ben, nothing I didn't knew but as you mentioned, surely helpfull to others.
I fly a same yearly average like you but for business, so I get almost every day on a plane.
I'm European and the only time I flew Wetleases was between LIS-RAI-LIS. I wanted to fly VR because the only competitor at that time (Covid) was TP and they practice(d) exorbital prices. When TP was the only option I never paid less than €1000 for a return LIS-RAI-LIS in Economy.
So I tried VR, but they operated the Route with the Spanish Wetlease P6 wich has his HUB at MAD. Because VR hadn't any A/C disponible to fly that Route back in time. Never flew P6 before but have to say, I would fly them again in a blink of an eye. The Route was operated by their B757. The Crew and Service was outstanding in the Air and on the Ground.
We were about fully booked and once we arrived at RAI I had my specific restaurant (wich is known as the best in RAI and big surroundings) and of course I went there that evening (I almost lived there during two years during covid but flew weekly to Europe).
To my great surprise our Crew arrived an hour later and without remarking them they greeted me. That was a great experience, will never forget. I insisted to share the same table and I paid our diner because we had a lovely chat and I could talk about my job and them about their experience. It was lovely. I believe they always operated that Route on every friday, so we met every friday.
Last year, I booked an Aeroflot flight from Vladivostok to Moscow that was operated by iFly (a Russian charter airline) with an iFly crew. I often fly between these two cities, and I always try to book flights operated by Aeroflot. Of course, Rossiya has operated some of the flights for years, and still does, but Aeroflot began wet leasing iFly planes and crew early last year. I had an emergency situation and had to book last-minute tickets to the US via Moscow and Turkey, and the only flight that worked for my schedule was the iFly-operated flight. It was a nightmare. The plane was an old a330 that had 3-4-3 seating rather than the usual 2-4-2 seating on a330s. There was no wifi or seatback entertainment for the 8.5 hour flight, and the flight attendants were incredibly rude. While Aeroflot itself is generally a good airline, the iFly was straight-up trash. Never again.
Having the same problem as well. Thankfully figured out the workaround, but good to hear it works for others
Just flew LOT where the JFK WAW route is flown by what I believe is a wet-lease (although the crew did seem Polish). I imagine its so LOT can provide a bigger J cabin than their 787s.
The old Air NZ 777 now operated by Prestige definitely needed some love and upgrading. I thought the Prestige direct aisle cabin would be better than the current LOT 787 2-2-2 cabin, but I was wrong -- I liked the LOT 787 better.
Looking forward to the new LOT cabins...
It's physically impossible to fit 3-4-3 on A330. Maybe if they go single aisle 5-5?
Accessing comments just started worked again. I hadn't taken any potential corrective actions since they were not working. Maybe Ben got this issue corrected.
Sometimes, wet leases are also very good for the passengers. I‘m looking at you, Lufthansa! I would take an Air Baltic A220 any day over any of your crammed narrowbodies …
Last time I flew Air Baltic on a Swiss flight the cabin crew were Spanish...and it wasn't even on a route from/to Spain! They probably have depleted the labour pool in the baltics in the process of scaling up!
You're right. I mistyped. It was 3-3-3 across. But still, the seats were quite narrow and I barely fit in them, as they squeezed one extra seat in as compared to the Aeroflot a330s.