Airlines with accordion fleets
 

There is a fairly recent trend in Canada for certain airlines to have accordion fleets of aircraft to quickly adjust for seasonal demands. Canjet, a 737 operator, operates just 5 B-737s from June to October, but sometime in mid to late October, will gradually increase its fleet to 12 B737s, to peak sometime around Dec 15th. The peak ends somewhere around late March, when they begin to gradually decrease the fleet size, to bring it back down to 5 around late May.

Sunwing airlines does basically the same, going from 10 737s to 29 in the peak of winter.

Both of these airlines do this with short term leases of aircraft, hiring foreign seasonal pilots on short term contracts, and occasionally with foreign wet leases.

Are there any other cases in other countries where jet operators will double or triple their fleet every year for a short period of the year as I just decribed.

The only cases I can think of are the airlines that do Hajj fights which wet-lease foreign aircraft and every year for the 2 months of the Hajj.

Any other known cases ?

i believe Ryan Air does it in Turkey.

Airlines with accordion fleets ?
Sounds shocking...do they upgrade the SLF ear defenders ?

Ryanair don't fly to Turkey :ok:

This has been around for a long time. If memory serves me correctly back in the 1980's Air Europe used this system for many years. During the summer months Air Europe would receive a couple of aircraft, I think B734's, from Air Florida.
At the end of the season these borrowed aircraft would be returned to Air Florida. I think these returned aircraft would be accompanied by a couple of Air Europe's. So both airlines would benefit from an expanding and contracting fleet size as their seasonal business demands dictate.

Nothing new. Certainly been around a long time, especially between the UK & Canada. Canada 3000 shared with Air 2000. Sunwing share with Thomson. Airtours used to share with Skyservice - all transferring aircraft & crews with the respective seasons.

Flyboy, I think he was referring to Ryan International airlines a US carrier not the Irish outfit. Ryan often lease out around the world.

Air 2000 did the same in their early days with a Canadian sister company, Canada 3000. Both airlines had identical colours schemes so just a change of name decal was required.

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Transavia do it with Sun Country (USA) and (I believe) GOL of Brazil.

I don't mean swapping a couple aircraft here and there. A company such as Sunwing Airlines annually increases it's fleet size by 200%. It went from 10 aircraft in the summer of 2012 (only six of which were operated in Canada, since 4 of them were on wet-leases in Europe) to 29 aircraft during the winter months. And it does this every year.

If one was to consider only the 6 aircraft that were left flying in Canada in the summer, its annual increase in fleet size is almost 400%. It is again down to 6 aircraft in Canada today after having operated 29 aircraft from Dec to March using Thomson, TUIfly, Jetairfly and Travel Service aircraft and crews in the winter.

Any other airline does this to this extent?

for season dependent carriers - it's the only way to survive.

• Sun
• Snow
• Hajj
• Olympics
• etc

you just have to be clear about which market you're serving at any one time - don't mix the Sun flights up with the Hajj

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.

I think "Accordion Fleet" is reserved for those airlines that have it as SOP with (pretty) fixed sizes in summer & winter - not yer average hire something to fill a sudden gap

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 ?

tells you a lot about what winter is like in the Dominion............

I had noticed that Montrealguy had posted the same on A.net and when I read it what on there what struck me was that he was so surprised this happened so I did't bother to make a reply which I i'm still not going too :eek:

'Accordian Fleet' well I have never seen or heard that term of phrase used before :hmm:

canberra97, provide a link to that post please for everyone to see.

Apparently one can have an accordian bus, an accordian player, indeed an accordian teacher but goggle suggests that there is only one place to find an accordian fleet and that is right here in this thread.

Aha, Air Transat make reference to an accordian fleet which, what with MontrealGuy, suggests that it is a Canadian expression.

Also, on this side of the Atlantic, it's spelled accordion, with an "o".

Now that we settled what it all means, where the term might have originated and how it is properly spelled on either side of the Atlantic, how about some comments on the actual subject of the thread ?

Does any airline outside of Canada do this, or is this practice, like it's weird name and unique spelling, unique to Canada ?

Jet2 do it every summer when they lease in some extra airframes and livery them into their own colours each time (just the text, not the whole vert. stab. colouring etc)