Finnair (AY, Helsinki Vantaa) will wet-lease A321-200 capacity from Iberia (IB, Madrid Barajas) for its daily Helsinki Vantaa-Madrid Barajas route effective April 1, 2019.
"The lease will last for a duration of 12 months and will cover a shortage of aircraft as Finnair continues to grow its operations. With the leased aircraft, the flight deck crew comes from Iberia, while the cabin crew is Finnair’s. However, during the first operating month of the lease, the flights will be operated with Iberia’s cabin crew, and there will be one Finnair crew member on board to support the delivery of Finnair's customer service concept," the Finnish carrier said in a statement.
The carrier also said that outsourced cabin crew hired through an employment firm Adecco and based out of Madrid and Barcelona El Prat will join the Finnish airline's payroll as of April 1, 2019.
Finnair operates up to 10x weekly between Helsinki and Madrid but will reduce the frequency to 7x weekly in summer 2019. Iberia itself does not serve Finland. Both carriers are members of Oneworld and of the same transatlantic joint venture.
Iberia operates fifteen A321-200s, while Finnair operates nineteen units of the type.