How’s this for a slogan on an airline’s home page? “Carrying your customers with care.” It may strike you as odd, because the passenger would expect something like “carrying you with care”. But in the case of the UK’s newest airline, Ascend Airways, the customer isn’t the passenger – it is another carrier.
Ascend Airways is both the latest British airline and the newest component of the Avia Solutions Group family. This Dublin-based company is the leading short-term supplier of planes with pilots and cabin crew. This practice is known as “wet-leasing”, or by the acronym Acmi – which stands for aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance. And it has been a common part of the airline business for decades.
The organisation also includes SmartLynx of Latvia (which calls itself “the Uber of aviation”) and Avion Express, with roots in both Lithuania and Malta. But you will look in vain for any branding on the planes. And you can’t directly book tickets on any of them.
Alastair Wilson, chief executive of Ascend Airways, says: “We obtained our AOC [air operator certificate] in April this year and immediately commenced operations on behalf of two airlines – flying their passengers to various destinations in and around the Mediterranean.
“We’ve created more than 200 new UK jobs, which we’re very proud of, and have ambitious plans to grow the fleet.
“We’re excited about the prospects of the business and helping UK carriers grow and overcome operational difficulties.”
Fully crewed aircraft of the kind Alastair supplies – also known as “white-tails” due to their absence of brand identity – are in demand for four reasons:
- “Operational difficulties”: this catch-all phrase often applies to short-notice gaps in the fleet due to technical issues. I have flown on a different wet-lease provider, Titan Airways, from Amsterdam to Luton when easyJet was short of an aircraft
- One-off events: many “wet-leased” aircraft spent weeks in June and July flying to, from and within Germany for the Euro 2024 football tournament
- Niche operations: holiday companies might want a regular but infrequent route covered, such as ski flights to non-mainstream destinations or a summer programme to a small Mediterranean airport close to a beach club
- Seasonality: an airline buys in capacity for its peak schedule – meeting demand for the high-revenue summer season without having expensive planes and crews sitting on the books during low-revenue winter. For example, one June, having booked with Ryanair, I flew from Seville to Stansted on Air Arabia
Seasonality provides the most demand for Ascend Airways, Wilson says. “Leisure traffic has rebounded extremely strongly and remains very strong. Environmental considerations and the ability to work from home means business travel has been weaker.
“That means that seasonality is getting worse. You currently see about 35 per cent more available seat kilometres [a key metric in aviation] in the summer than you do in the winter.
“That’s very difficult for airlines to manage. If they want to purchase or ‘dry-lease’ an aircraft [plane without crew], they probably have to commit for 12 years.
“They need to permanently employ crews, and it can be a real drain on profitability.
“What we try and do is provide them that excess capacity – that additional 35 per cent – that they need each season and then redeploy that capacity.”
Good news, then, for the airline chartering in spare capacity. But what does he do with planes, pilots and cabin crew during the winter? Like birds, his aircraft and crew migrate south for the winter. “We see counter-seasonal demand in southeast Asia and in South America.”
A common complaint to The Independent goes like this: “I booked on airline X and have just been told I will be flying on airline Y, which I haven’t heard of.”
But Wilson says you can relax: “Our objective as a wet-lease provider is to ensure that when you step on board an Ascend aircraft, high standards of safety are maintained, and also that the service and the product on board is also maintained.
“From a consumer point of view, it should be of at least the equivalent standard.”
Surely, though, it is frustrating creating an airline with no public brand – and therefore no brand loyalty? Quite the opposite, says the Ascend Airways boss.
“I have to speak to fewer people. And I see it as a positive. We can focus on ensuring we’re flying our aircraft safely, efficiently and providing a valued service to our customers.” That’s the airlines, not the passengers.