newstodate.aero

Mar 06, 2023 (newstodate): The Latvian carrier airBaltic is growing its fleet of Airbus A220-300 aircraft - but still needs sourcing in external aircraft capacity in summer 2023.
   airBaltic has thus contracted the Lithuanian ACMI carrier Avion Express for wet-lease of four Airbus A320-200 aircraft during the expectedly busy summer period.
   Two of the aircraft will operate out of airBaltic's base at Riga Airport starting from March 26 to October 28, while one will be based in Vilnius and another in Tallinn, from May 1 to October 28, 2023.
   In the fleet of airBaltic are today 39 Airbus A220-300 aircraft; since December 2022 two more are on the Airbus FAL, but the production continues to be plagued by global logistics issues delaying their completion and first flights.
   Seeking complementary revenue strings, airBaltic is itself active in the wet-lease market; in summer 2022, SAS was operating five airBaltic Airbus A220-300 aircraft on a wet-lease contract; in August 2022, airBaltic landed a wet-lease agreement with Swiss covering the winter 2022/23 schedule allocating six Airbus A220-300 aircraft with airBaltic cockpit and cabin crews for flights on behalf of Swiss on the airline's European route network - and this agreement has now been extended to comprise this year's summer schedule also.
   In summer 2022, the Lufthansa Group airline Eurowings also wet-leased five airBaltic Airbus A220-300 aircraft till the end of November 2022.
   In the same period, airBaltic was operating one Airbus A319 and one Fokker 100 from the Romanian airline Carpatair, as well as one Boeing 737-800 from the Ukrainian carrier SkyUp, one Boeing 737-900 from Ukraine International Airlines, one Boeing 737-800 from the Czech carrier SmartWings, and one Embraer E190 from a yet-unnamed airline.