A shortage of staff, a shortage of planes, and all this in a period when demand is ramping up. It’s nothing unusual in the airline business these days. One airline feeling the shortages is Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings Discover. It is wet-leasing five aircraft from other airlines this summer to respond to the peak in leisure travel. Wet leasing helps Eurowings Discover get through the busy summer. Discover launched operations in July 2021. While it shares the Eurowings name, Discover is actually a completely different and separate entity within Lufthansa Group. Where Eurowings offers a low-cost product from its Cologne base on predominantly routes within Europe and some long-haul routes, Discover is specifically targeting the leisure market. For this, Lufthansa took a good look at SWISS-subsidiary Edelweiss, which has produced strong results by offering a high-quality leisure product. Discover was originally planned to capture just the long-haul market with its Airbus A330s, but from November 1, 2021, also started offering short and medium-haul flights within Europe to twenty popular winter destinations in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, and North Africa. While its ten A330s and six A320s used to operate only from Frankfurt, Munich has become its second base. Long-haul flights to Las Vegas, Punta Cana, and Cancun were launched from Munich at the end of March. Male (Maldives) will follow in October. From June, five A320s will be transferred to Munich for the short and medium-haul network. On the network from Frankfurt for this year are Panama City, Las Vegas, Fort Myers, Salt Lake City, Calgary, Kilimanjaro, Halifax, Anchorage, Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), and Windhoek (Namibia). The current network of Discover, showing flights from Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC). (Eurowings Discover) Lufthansa will publish its Q1 results and outlook for 2022 on May 5, but all indications are that Discover is benefitting from pent-up demand as Germans want to travel again after two years of lockdowns and travel restrictions. That’s where things have started to become a bit crampy as far as fleet and staff are concerned. “We see that demand has developed positively for this summer. As Eurowings Discover is still in its ramp-up phase and yet has a small fleet of sixteen aircraft this summer and limited crew, additional aircraft have been leased in order to meet the expected demand and fly travelers to their vacation”, a Discover spokesperson tells AirInsight. A220s from airBaltic and A350s from Finnair Discover has wet-leased aircraft from airBaltic and announced just last week that it will get two Airbus A350-900s from Finnair in May, with a third joining in June. “Eurowings Discover has set up wet-lease agreements with the two airlines airBaltic for two A220-300s and Finnair for three A350s for this summer from May through October. The airline is thus temporarily expanding its own, still small fleet by five aircraft on short- and long-haul routes this summer in order to be able to respond to the expected high demand this summer.” Leasing in the three Finnair A350s not only benefits Discover but Finnair too. Some 400 Finnair crew will be transferred to the Discover operations, which include some 150 flights per month to destinations in North America. Not only does this keep its crew busy, but it also means welcome revenues for Finnair at a time when its long-haul network to Asia has been curtailed following the continued Covid-restrictions on key markets. Routes to countries that are open need longer flying time following the closing of Russian airspace to European carriers after the EU imposed sanctions on Russia. Finnair also wet-leases four A321s to British Airways. airBaltic is wet-leasing eleven aircraft this summer, including two to Eurowings Discover, three to Eurowings, and up to four to SAS. Finnair's wet lease to Discover includes three Airbus A350s and some 400 crew. (Finnair) The plan of Discover is to grow its own fleet to 21 aircraft by the end of this year as the number of A320s increases to ten. It remains to be seen if this is sufficient for 2023, but more wet leases aren’t to be ruled out. “In general, the temporary use of wet-leased aircraft during summer peaks is particularly common in highly seasonally driven markets such as tourism. It can offer flexibility to mitigate peaks in demand.” The German airline has no other option to wet-lease aircraft and crew as it is understaffed right now. “Like many other airlines, the young airline is facing some staff shortages in the cockpit and cabin. With the leap in demand and the expected catch-up effect in summer, many airlines are ramping up their operations and hiring staff at the same time. In addition, the pandemic has slowed crew training and education, delaying our planned ramp-up path since not as much crew could be trained as originally intended”, says the Discover spokesperson. Discover to offer higher salaries from September At the core of Discover’s business model is its lower cost structure compared to other airlines within the group. But with competition for staff being high between airlines, the carrier has no option but to offer better payment. From September 1, pilot salaries will be raised by double-digit numbers while cabin crew salaries go up by high single-digit percentage points. Ahead of the summer season, all flying employees have received a single payment “in recognition of their effort on behalf of Eurowings Discover.” Discover CEO Wolfgang Raebiger announced the pay increase in April and said in a media statement: "The establishment of Eurowings Discover has fallen into the most severe crisis in aviation, in which no reliable forecasts were possible for the development of the market and demand. The salary structures also had to reflect this circumstance. It was always clear to us that we would make adjustments in the medium term, and we are pleased that the booming summer that is now forecast gives us the opportunity to do so. This will ensure that Eurowings Discover will continue to be an attractive and competitive employer in the future." Discover currently employs some 1.000 staff but continues hiring pilots, cabin crew, and staff for other roles. It is offering only permanent contracts to flying crew this year.
