Finnair (AY, Helsinki Vantaa) will wet-lease Dash 8-400 turboprop capacity from Norway's Widerøe (WF, Bodø) for its services between Helsinki Vantaa and Norwegian airports, ch-aviation schedule analysis has revealed.
The wet-leased Bombardier Aerospace aircraft will operate up to 4x weekly to Tromsø between May 18 to August 15, 2019, and 5x weekly to Trondheim starting on June 5.
Wideroe already wet-leases E190-E2 capacity to Finnair. The Embraer regional jets are deployed on behalf of the Finnish flag carrier from Helsinki to Tromso (1x weekly), Bergen (7x weekly), Berlin Tegel (3x weekly), and Vienna (7x weekly). The upcoming wet-lease of a Q400 will not affect the existing cooperation, including on the route to Tromso. The flights to Berlin and Vienna are only scheduled to operate until March 30.
The Norwegian regional specialist operates ten Q400s, on top of twenty-two Dash 8-100s, three Dash 8-200s, and six Dash 8-300s. Finnair, on the other hand, does not operate any turboprops in-house but wet-leases twelve ATR72-500s from its 40%-owned subsidiary NoRRA Nordic Regional Airlines. The airline also wet-leases one ATR72-200 from DAT - Danish Air Transport, which owns the remaining 60% of NoRRA, and one -500 from DAT's sister airline DOT LT.
