US-Bangla Airlines (BS, Dhaka) has wet-leased a B737-800 from Lithuania’s KlasJet (KLJ, Vilnius) for three months until mid-May 2024.
LY-TFS (msn 37741) was ferried from Belgrade Nikola Tesla to Dhaka via Tbilisi on February 8 and started operating for the Bangladeshi carrier on February 12. It has since been deployed on routes from Dhaka to Dubai International and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, ch-aviation analysis of Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows.
US-Bangla Airlines operates an in-house fleet of seven B737-800s, one A330-300, ten ATR72-600s, and three DHC-8-Q400s. It also wet-leases two aircraft from other Bangladeshi carriers, according to the ch-aviation fleets module - an ATR72-500 from NovoAir (VQ, Dhaka) and a B737-200(F) from SkyAir (S8, Dhaka).
The contract comes as US-Bangla targets an expansion of its international network - it inducted the A330-300 earlier this week as it chases a delivery date of the fourth quarter of 2024 for its first B737-8. In a joint statement with KlasJet, it said that the B737 will fly to multiple destinations across the Middle East and Asia.
The Lithuanian charter/ACMI specialist, which is part of Avia Solutions Group, operates six B737-800s alongside two B737-300s, three B737-500s, one B737-800(BBJ), and one Challenger 850. Its chief commercial officer, Lukas Petrauskas, told ch-aviation last year that it was aiming to have a fleet of 35 aircraft dedicated to passenger ACMI operations within five years.
