Are ‘wet lease’ planes safe?
Q I read about the practice of “wet leasing” in which the plane you expect is substituted by another airline. How safe are these part-time planes?
R Shepherd
A Airlines using other carriers to do the flying for them is almost as old as the aviation industry. As my article explained, this year British Airways is once again wet leasing – chartering planes with the requisite pilots and cabin crew – from outside. In this
case, Titan Airways, based at Stansted airport in Essex, will take over BA flights on a range of short-haul routes. And my Aer Lingus flight from Belfast to London this weekend will actually be on British Airways “metal” – ie a BA plane and crew. These two examples give a hint about the wide range of reasons for wet leasing: the first is to replace the Irish airline because Brexit prohibits it from operating a UK domestic flight, while British Airways simply does not have the resources to cover its planned schedule fully.
These examples involve airlines regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and the safety standards reflect the UK’s outstanding safety record for the past three decades. But on plenty of other occasions foreign airlines are used. I have flown on Air Arabia (based in Sharjah) rather than Ryanair from Seville to Stansted, while Wamos Air of Madrid operates plenty of flights on behalf of UK companies.
Fortunately, the principle is enshrined by the CAA that any “wet leased in” (WLI) aircraft remain the safety concern of the airline that brings them in. The CAA says: “At the heart of process is recognition that the UK AOC [Air Operator Certificate] holder remains accountable for the safety of its operations when using WLI services and that it must oversee WLI aircraft as part of its own Safety Management System (SMS) to assure the safety of these operations.”
Given that all UK and Irish airlines are safety-obsessed, this should put passengers’ minds at rest.
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