Croatia Airlines is planning to wet-lease regional aircraft for thinner short routes once it removes the Dash 8 turboprops from its fleet and becomes a single-type operator of the Airbus A220 aircraft. As EX-YU Aviation News learns, through wet-leases the airline intends to overcome overcapacity on routes where the A220s would be too large and is eying a turboprop capacity-provider. By 2027, the carrier will take delivery of twelve A220-300s, which will have the capacity to seat 149 passengers, and three A220-100s with 127 seats. Croatia Airlines will welcome its first A220-300 next month, while the second is expected to arrive in November.
Croatia Airlines’ existing six-member turboprop fleet is under an operational lease. The agreement was concluded in 2007 with GOAL (German Operating Aircraft Leasing), a joint venture between Lufthansa and KGAL, for a period of ten years. GOAL has since sold the units utilised by Croatia Airlines to Falco Regional Aircraft. The lease for the Dash 8s was then extended for two aircraft until late 2024 and for the rest until 2025. The 76-seat Dash fleet has been a workhorse for the airline. Over the past five months, the turboprops operated on a total of 5.903 flights compared to the Airbus jet fleet which was utilised on 3.809 flights.
The Croatian carrier is currently experiencing a fleet shortage with some aircraft out of service due to maintenance and supply chain issues. The airline faced additional issues yesterday when an A319 jet was forced to return to Zagreb shortly after departure to Copenhagen with a technical issue. The airline subsequently wet-leased a Danish Air Transport A320 jet, joining other wet-leases including a Trade Air A320, a Fly41 Airways A319, and an Albastar Boeing 737-800. The airline has also wet-leased ad-hoc capacity on a short-term basis over the past two months and reduced frequencies on select routes until the end of June.
source:https://www.exyuaviation.com
