How a Wet Lease Works
How a wet lease works - When is it better to charter? There are two very different ways of renting out aircraft flight time. The first method is traditional charter, this is what most trips and customers would fall in to. Charterting an aircraft allows you to have the aircraft for the minimum possible time for your trip, you will be billed an hourly rate for using the aircraft, in addition to fuel costs, and airport/crew fees. Meaning once your trip is over, the aircraft is no longer yours. For large multi-leg trips, one can charter an aircraft, or simply acquire a wet lease on the aircraft. Now for a large multi leg trip with gaps in arrival and departure dates, traditional charter would mean that said aircraft would have to return to home base for maintenance and refueling, the aircraft would only be yours for the legs of your trips, meaning any sudden changes in itinerary, and the aircraft could already be thousands of miles away. But when one wet leases an aircraft, the aircraft and it’s crew are all yours for the duration of your trip, you will be billed for additional unexpected itinerary changes if the hourly/fuel consumption differs from the projected one, but the essential fact is, you are the temporary owner of the aircraft, meaning even if the aircraft owner him/herself requires the aircraft for some sort of emergency, they would have to wait until the duration of your wet lease ends. Lets look at 2 example trips and figure out which is better for wet lease, and which is better for traditional charter: Our first trip’s itinerary: New York -> London 9:00 AM Jan 1 London -> Paris 4:00