Originally Posted by Phileas Fogg
Am I stating the obvious here but if "Airline A" leases aircraft from "Airline B" they may do it by means of a "Wet Lease, a "Damp Lease" or a "Dry Lease" or, indeed, "ACMI" of "Full Charter".
I've never heard of an "Accordian Fleet", might as well call it a "Trombone Fleet", it's equally as ridiculous, but I've leased in many an aircraft in my time, I recall one day when I leased in eight aircraft whilst my oppo was taking his 90 minute lunch break, did we have an "Accordian Fleet" that lunchtime?
Just because Airline A leases in an aircraft or few from Airlines B, C, D etc. doesn't neccessarily represent an increase in fleet size of Airline A, the aircraft still remain on the fleet(s) of Airlines B, C, D etc.
Sunwing Airlines from Canada has a minimum of 10 aircraft in its fleet year around. Last fall, between Oct 2012 and Dec 2012, it dry-leased 15 additional aircraft from Europe (from Thomson, TUIfly, Jetairfly and Travel Service). These aircraft were all de-registered from their European registry, taken off their airline's AOC, re-registered in Canada, and put under Sunwing's AOC. Sunwing then had 25 aircraft in its fleet according to the Canadian Aircraft Register and its AOC.
Then, in late March 2013, some of these aircraft began to go back to Europe, were de-registered from the Canadian registry, re-registered in Europe, taken off the Sunwing AOC and re-integrated the fleet of the airline they originally had come from. The last of those extra aircraft left in May and now Sunwing is back to its 10 original aircraft, until next October. They do this every year. One aircraft was in Canada, on Canadian registry, only 89 days and them went back on UK registry to re-integrate Thomson.
So Sunwing had 10 aircraft on its AOC on Oct 1, 2012, 25 aircraft on its AOC on Dec 15 2012, and was back down to 10 aircraft on June 1, 2013.
"Accordion fleet" is what it was referred to in the press. Trombone if you prefer. Whatever its called, the principle is explained.
In addition to those 15 short term dry-leases, they also wet-leased another 4 aircraft from Europe. So they increased their fleet to 29 aircraft if you include the 4 wet-leases.
What I would like to know, is if anyone knows of any other airline in the world that does this with jets to this extent ?