When taxing to the runway on a commercial flight you might see a passenger aircraft with the markings GlobalX or Atlas Air. You may be wondering, what are these obscure Airlines and what do they do? They operate something known as an ACMI operation. ACMI stands for Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance. Basically an airline or startup airline can “rent” an aircraft and their crew from the ACMI Operator.
Notable ACMI Operators
If you are traveling on Canadian leisure airline Air Transat and are heading to Latin America chances are you might be flying on an aircraft operated by ACMI operator SmartLynx. Your ticket will be through Air Transat however, SmartLynx will operate the crew and aircraft under an ACMI agreement. Air Canada is also taking advantage of utilizing ACMI for their busy summer operations. Air Canada will utilize a ACMI wet leased Boeing 767 wide body aircraft from Omni Air International. In Europe, leisure operator TUI has ACMI wet lease agreement with GlobalX to operate two Airbus A320s on behalf of TUI Airlines Netherlands. Airlines including the aforementioned operators benefit from ACMI operators as they assist with providing aircraft and crew to meet demand during a busy travel period.