reek carrier Aegean Airlines has agreed to lease a pair of Airbus A320s from Cypriot operator Cyprus Airways.
Under the terms of the wet lease agreement, Cyprus Airways will also provide pilots and cabin crews to operate the leased aircraft, the first of which is due to be delivered to Aegean in December 2023.
The second aircraft will follow in March 2024, before the busy summer season gets underway for the Athens-based carrier. The agreement was facilitated by aviation and ACMI specialists, Zela Aviation.
The cooperation between carriers provides both Aegean Airlines and Cyprus Airways with a win-win solution. While it will allow the Cypriot carrier to expand its fleet and benefit from the synergies and economies of scale from additional Airbus family aircraft, it also provides Aegean with longer-term flexibility to add extra capacity over the next 12 months as it looks to cement itself as the established Greek national carrier.
Aegean has also recently been struggling to offset a capacity shortfall caused by the need to ground several of its Airbus A320neo aircraft over the next few months as a result of unscheduled checks that are required on Pratt & Whitney PW1100G engines. This is an ongoing issue that has affected a large number of airlines worldwide in recent months.
“We are very happy and proud to take the next step in our strategic cooperation with Aegean,” said Paul Sies, Chief Executive of Cyprus Airways. “We already have an extensive codeshare agreement in place where we work closely to offer and optimize our joint products and services. We are now taking our cooperation to the next level and working closely with Aegean, also on an operational level.”
“We are very proud to have facilitated this project and worked with both flag carriers to see them cooperate further together,” added Andreas Christodoulides of Zela Aviation. “We believe in strengthening the synergies between the two companies that will not just benefit both companies but will also provide better products and services to the airlines’ customers.”
Cyprus Airways is the latest incarnation of an airline using that name and has been operating as such since July 2016. According to aviation fleet data source ch-aviation, the carrier operates an all-Airbus fleet comprising of two A220-300s delivered in 2023, plus two A320-200s registered 5B-DDQ and 5B-DDR.
Meanwhile, the significantly larger Aegean Airlines also operates exclusively Airbus aircraft. The carrier has 28 A320s, 16 A320neos, five A321s, and 12 A321neos. Besides its jet fleet, the carrier also operates a turboprop fleet of nine ATR72-600s.
