The small Swiss airline, Chair Airlines, has announced plans to lease one Boeing 737-800 aircraft from Polish airline Enter Air. This comes as flights services resume after the pandemic, but Chair Airlines finds itself missing one of its three Airbus A319s following a maintenance accident in 2020.
Chair Airlines and the A319
Chair Airlines is a leisure carrier based at Zurich airport. It started service in 2014, under the brand Germania Flug. Since 2019, and after the bankruptcy of Germania, it rebranded as Chair Airlines. This was certainly a quirky choice of name. According to the airline, it represents both the seat that you book and the Swiss connection with the ‘ch.’
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The airline operates scheduled flights from Switzerland to several holiday destinations across Europe, as well as Egypt and Tunisia (10 destinations in total according to ch-aviation.com). Fleet-wise it operates just two Airbus A319-100 aircraft – with registrations HB-JOG and HB-JOJ. These were both acquired second-hand by Germania before being taken on by Chair Airlines.
Loosing one Airbus aircraft in 2020
Before the pandemic, Chair Airlines had a slightly larger fleet of thee A319 aircraft. A third aircraft with registration HB-JOH had a similar history but was lost in July 2020. This was the result of an unfortunate accident when undergoing maintenance at Naples airport. According to the airline, this happened following an impact with the door of a maintenance hangar, and the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.
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Leasing a Boeing 737-800
Dropping to a fleet of two aircraft would clearly be impactful for such a small airline. With the slowdown in traffic seen in 2020, there was no immediate need to replace it. This has changed now that traffic is once again increasing.
Chair Airlines is leasing one Boeing 737-800 aircraft from Polish airline Enter Air. According to aeroTELEGRAPH, the 737, with registration SP-ESE, will occasionally fly over the summer on a wet lease arrangement. The Enter Air branding will be temporarily covered with the Chair Airlines logo. The aircraft was ferried to Zurich on July 21st and flew its first service the same day (from Zurich to Skopje).
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Chair Airlines and Enter Air
The choice of airline to lease from is no coincidence. Enter Air owns 49% of the shares in Chair Airlines. It is likewise a leisure airline, based in Warsaw and founded in just 2009. It took a share in struggling Germania Flug in March 2019.
Enter Air operates an all-Boeing fleet, with 24 Boeing 737-800 and two 737 MAX 8 aircraft (according to ch-aviation.com). It has a further six 737 MAX 8 aircraft on order.
Simple Flying reached out to Chair Airlines for further details on its plans for the 737-800 aircraft but had not heard back at the time of publication.
Have you ever flown with Chair Airlines and its small A319 fleet? Do you think this wet lease deal will work for the airline, or will it look to purchase its own aircraft as the market picks up? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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