Summary
- SpiceJet evacuated several people from Israel using a wet-leased Airbus A340 and recently flew over 3,000 Thai residents on 10 special flights.
- The airline has also used the A340 for evacuation missions to bring back Indian residents from Israel as a part of the Indian government’s repatriation efforts.
- SpiceJet has actively used the wet-leased A340 for previous industrial and charter flights.
Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet has played an important role in evacuating people from Israel on account of the Israel-Hamas war. The airline has used widebody capability for these missions by deploying an Airbus A340 aircraft that has been wet-leased. SpiceJet recently evacuated 1000’s of Thai residents and earlier also took part within the India-led mission to evacuate its residents from Israel.
Thai residents evacuated
SpiceJet recently put its wet-leased Airbus A340 aircraft to make use of for evacuating greater than 3,000 residents of Thailand from Israel. In line with reports, the low-cost carrier operated 10 special flights to perform the mission – these flights were carried out between October 20 and 31, flying on various routes, equivalent to from Tel Aviv to Bangkok and Tel Aviv to Fujairah within the United Arab Emirates.
Indeed, SpiceJet is actively deploying the A340 to the Middle East. When tracked on Flightradar24, the aircraft has exclusively flown between Beirut and Latest Delhi within the last seven days. While the precise reason for these flights just isn’t known, many consider that these is also UN charter flights.
Evacuating Indians, too
In October, SpiceJet also used the leased widebody plane to evacuate Indian residents from Israel under the Indian Government’s Operation Ajay. The country organized several charter flights to bring back residents from Israel, and SpiceJet also deployed its plane on the mission.
In actual fact, while operating one in every of the evacuation flights, the A340 also developed a technical snag after landing in Tel Aviv. It needed to temporarily shift to Amman in Jordan to get the problem fixed before taking passengers from Tel Aviv. Regarding its evacuation flights, SpiceJet has said in a press release,
A340 wet-leased from Legend Airlines
The Airbus A340 is not any stranger to SpiceJet, because the carrier often operates it on wet lease for various purposes. In the course of the pandemic, SpiceJet also used an A340 for special cargo flights in addition to Hajj flights this 12 months.
SpiceJet currently has one A340 in its fleet, which has been wet-leased from Legend Airlines, an EU-registered carrier. Based in Bucharest, Romania, it was established in 2020 and operates an all-A340 fleet.
The aircraft currently utilized by SpiceJet is registered as YR-LRD and is 16.6 years old. As of October 2023, it has flown 53,134 hours across 6,194 flight cycles. Per ch-aviation, its previous operators include Airhub Airlines, Air Belgium, and Finnair.
For normal operations, SpiceJet uses a mixed fleet of Boeing 737 and Dash 8-Q400 planes. Recently, the airline also leased several more 737s to spice up capability for the busy winter travel months in India.
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