التأجير الرطب (Wet Lease)

What Is a Wet Lease?

A wet lease (also known as an ACMI lease — Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance) is a leasing arrangement in which one airline (the lessor) provides another airline (the lessee) with an aircraft fully crewed, maintained, and insured. The lessee pays an hourly rate covering all these elements and provides only the fuel and ground handling. The operating crew fly in the lessor's uniforms under the lessor's Air Operator Certificate (AOC), but the service is sold under the lessee's brand and flight numbers. Wet leasing differs fundamentally from the more common dry lease, in which only the aircraft is provided and the lessee supplies its own crew, maintenance, and insurance.

How It Works

A wet lease is arranged when an airline needs additional capacity rapidly — for seasonal peaks, to cover an aircraft undergoing heavy maintenance or AOC suspension, or to trial a new route without committing to a permanent aircraft purchase. The lessor airline effectively operates as a white-label operator for the lessee's customers. Regulatory oversight can be complex: the competent authority over the flight is typically the lessor's state, but the lessee's state must approve the arrangement. In the EU, Article 13 of EC Regulation 1008/2008 governs wet leasing between Community and third-country carriers.

Types and Standards

• ACMI: The full wet lease — Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance all provided.
• Damp lease: Aircraft provided with just the flight deck crew (not cabin crew) — lessee supplies cabin crew and sometimes maintenance.
• Dry lease: Aircraft only; lessee provides everything else. Most commercial airline leases are dry leases from lessors such as AerCap, Air Lease Corporation, or SMBC Aviation Capital.
• Power by the hour: Engine maintenance agreements linked to flight hours — sometimes grouped with wet lease economics in fleet planning discussions.

Interesting Facts

• Air Iceland Connect has operated multiple wet leases for major Scandinavian carriers during their busy summer season, providing extra narrowbody capacity on short-haul routes.
• When an airline's AOC is suspended — as happened to various carriers during COVID restructuring — a wet lease from a solvent partner can keep services running under the brand while the underlying business is reorganised.
• Wet lease rates fluctuate significantly with global aircraft availability; post-COVID, ACMI rates for narrowbodies reached record highs as aircraft supply tightened and demand recovered faster than expected.
• From a passenger rights perspective, in the EU the marketing carrier (lessee) is liable for EC 261/2004 compensation for delays or cancellations — not the operating carrier (lessor).