Why you can't buy tickets on the UK's newest airline

Simon Calder hears about the benefits of wet lease’ capacity and white-tail’ aircraft from the boss of Ascend Airways

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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 Dublinbased 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.