Helvetic Airways (2L, Zurich) has signed a dry-lease agreement with Azorra Aviation to add four second-hand E195s ahead of the Summer 2024 season. They will be the first units of the type for the carrier.
The 2011 model aircraft will be delivered in the early part of the second quarter 2024. Each of them will be reconfigured for up to 122 passengers.
"The four completely reconfigured and modernised aircraft will ideally complement our existing fleet. They will allow us to keep the flight plan stable even under the currently challenging conditions and to guarantee our customers a high level of reliability, planning security and, above all, punctuality," Chief Executive Tobias Pogorevc said.
The ch-aviation fleets ownership module shows Azorra Aviation owns six E195s of 2011 vintage. Three are currently in maintenance after coming off lease at Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (AD, São Paulo Viracopos), while the other three are active for SAS Link (SVS, Copenhagen Kastrup). Neither Helvetic Airways nor the lessor responded to ch-aviation's request for the identify of the aircraft.
Helvetic Airways currently operates six E190s, eight E190-E2s, and four E195-E2s but has never operated the E195s in its history. It bought all of its then-leased aircraft - four E190s - in mid-2022 thus transition to its fleet to outright ownership, but has since leased two E190s from TrueNoord. While all of its E2s were delivered directly to the carrier from Embraer, the E190s are all second-hand and were previously operated by Niki (Austria) (four) and TUI fly (Belgium) (two).
The airline operates a mix of long-term capacity purchase agreement (CPA) flights on behalf of Swiss (LX, Zurich) and in-house charter flights.
