Aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance, widely known in the airline industry as ACMI or wet leasing and damp leasing, is gaining momentum as a widely adopted business practice among airlines seeking to secure short-term aircraft capacity.
During periods of peak passenger traffic, such as Europe’s summer season, or aircraft capacity constraints experienced during industry-wide aircraft groundings, ACMI services provide an alternative to deep financial investment into aircraft capacity for airlines seeking to shore up their fleets.
Jonas Janukenas, CEO of global ACMI capacity provider Avia Solutions Group shares in an interview of the growing acceptance of ACMI “as a mainstream business [practice among airlines], as part of their long-term strategy.”
Avia Solutions Group, based in Dublin Ireland, is known to be the world’s largest ACMI capacity provider operating a fleet of 212 aircraft.
In a statement, released in April 2024, Avia Solutions Group announced its audited financial results for 2023, reporting revenues of EUR 2.3 billion, up 22% from the year before. According to the statement EUR 950 million of the Group’s revenues were attributed to passenger aircraft ACMI services.
According to Janukenas, establishing global aircraft operator certificates (AOC) infrastructure is key to the ACMI business model’s success.
“To achieve good utilization, we move aircraft to opposite seasonality areas,” said Janukenas in an Aviation Forum interview.
Avia Solutions Group operates 12 AOCs serving passenger and cargo ACMI businesses and is a parent company to SmartLynx Airlines, Avion Express, AirExplore, Ascend Airways, BBN Airlines Indonesia, KlasJet, Magma Aviation, Skytrans and other AOCs and aviation business entities.
However, the group aims to expand its fleet and capacity to 18 AOCs by the end of 2024, including plans to establish four ACMI-dedicated AOCs in Latin America and the Asia Pacific, namely Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia.
“We want to create all the infrastructure for an efficient and effective, both time- and cost-wise, network of different AOC across the globe,” Janukenas highlighted.
The Dublin-based group also provides a spectrum of aviation services which include aircraft maintenance and repair services (MRO) through its subsidiary FL Technics, with technical maintenance and repair hangars in Indonesia, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania, along with 100 operational maintenance stations in various countries.
Among the Group’s companies is the largest independent pilot training centre, BAA Training, with pilot schools in Spain, France, Lithuania, and Vietnam.
