Airest (AEG, Tallinn Lennart Meri) has taken delivery of its first ATR72-500(F), leased from Jetstream Aviation Capital in conjunction with turboprop owner Petrus Aviation, the carrier announced.

M-ABRC (msn 715) was ferried from Toulouse Francazal to Tallinn on June 12, 2024, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows, where it received a new Estonian registration, ES-LTZ.

On June 15, it was ferried from Tallinn to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, from where it will be deployed to one of Airest’s core clients in Germany, starting on June 17, the company said in a press release. “This new aircraft is a great supplement to our cargo operations, enhancing our ability to serve our customers with greater capacity, efficiency and reliability,” Aleksei Lupitski, chief executive officer of Airest, said.

The ch-aviation fleets module shows the airline's fleet now consists of eight planes, all of which are Saab 340A(F)s.

Prior to taking delivery of ES-LTZ, Airest wet-leased in a couple of airframes of the same model. SP-SPQ (msn 724) flew services for the Estonian cargo specialist between May 27 and June 7, while SP-SPN (msn 704) did the same between June 10 and June 14. Both aircraft were sourced from SprintAir (P8, Warsaw Chopin).

Airest told ch-aviation that both airframes were on short ACMI contracts, and that it does not expect to add any more wet-leased capacity for the time being.