What Happened To Primera Air’s Planes?

Primera Air shut down operations in October 2018, after years of struggling finances. With a mixed fleet of Boing 737s and Airbus A321neos, lessors quickly moved to take back their aircraft. After over two years, here’s a look at where Primera Air’s fleet ended up.

Data in this article is courtesy of Planespotters.net.

The 737

The Boeing 737 was the backbone of Primera Air’s fleet for over a decade, operating on all its European routes. The Scandanavian airline had 10 of the narrowbodies in its fleet at the time of bankruptcy, consisting of two -700s and eight -800s. All the aircraft were all equipped with winglets and were fairly modern despite their age.

The two Boeing 737-700s, registered YL-PSF and YL-PSG at the time, were both retired from use altogether and later broken up. While the -700s didn’t end up doing too well, the popular 737-800s did find new homes.

Leasing giant AerCap took back four 737-800s from Primera Air following its collapse. One of these aircraft went to low-cost Czech airline Smartwings and one to Polish airline Enter Air. Of the two remaining planes, one is currently stored while the other was broken up.

One aircraft from GECAS, registration YL-PSC, was later converted to a freighter and leased to ATRAN, a Volga-Depnr Group subsidiary. The other aircraft went to British leisure airline Jet2, which took three 737s from Primera in total. Of the last two 737-800s, one was broken up, and the other went to Canada’s Flair Airlines.

The A321neo

Perhaps the most exciting fleet development for Primera Air was the delivery of six new Airbus A321neos. However, backlogs and delays from Airbus resulted in Primera not receiving its first aircraft until early 2018, far behind its original schedule. The new planes were meant to open up Primera’s new long-haul market segment, connecting destinations like Toronto, Boston, and New York to its hubs in Europe.

Still confident about transatlantic routes, Primera did wet lease a Boeing 757 and 767 to operate routes like Paris-New York, but this proved to be extremely costly for the airline. Eventually, Primera did take delivery of five of its A321neos from April to August 2018.

While Primera Air may have collapsed, the A321neos were still fresh off the Airbus production lines and only a few months old. This means the planes quickly found new airlines willing to take on the fleet. Three aircraft were from Aviation Capital Group (ACG) and two from GECAS.

The two planes from GECAS made their way to Tap Air Portugal, a major A321neo family operator, in early 2019. Meanwhile, the three planes from ACG went to Vietnam’s rapidly expanding Bamboo Airways. Both airlines continue to operate these planes until today.