Jettime

Jettime is one of those airlines you rarely plan for and still see again and again. The Danes don’t sell classic scheduled tickets; they lease out aircraft with crew: to tour operators, to soccer clubs and to other airlines that are suddenly short an aircraft. That is exactly why a Jettime 737 sometimes turns up where you expected SAS or Norwegian. This page shows you how to place Jettime, what is left of the ATR era and how to recognize the airline reliably on the tracker and at the fence.

Jettime at a glance

Jettime is a Danish charter and ACMI airline based in Kastrup, right at Copenhagen Airport. Its business model differs sharply from that of a network airline like SAS or a low-cost carrier like Norwegian: Jettime does not build its own route network to sell to end customers. Instead, it flies on behalf of others.

Roughly speaking, there are three pillars:

• Charter for tour operators: Package holidays to the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands, Turkey and, in winter, to ski destinations in the Alps.
• Ad hoc and VIP charter: Flights for companies and sports clubs, for example for away games of Scandinavian soccer clubs.
• ACMI or wet lease: Jettime provides aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance when another airline needs capacity at short notice – reference sources name Air Greenland, SAS and Norwegian, among others.

The background article Wet lease explained covers what lies behind the wet-lease principle and why airlines use it. You can find the difference between charter and scheduled flights in the post Charter flights and scheduled flights.

From Jet Time to Jettime: the history

Anyone looking into Jettime quickly stumbles over two spellings. Behind them are actually two companies.

Jet Time (2006–2020)

The original Jet Time was founded in 2006 and took off for the first time on September 19, 2006. Over the following years it grew into an established player in the Scandinavian charter market. The fleet was much more varied back then than it is today: alongside the Boeing 737-300, the 737-400 and the 737-500 of the Classic generation, 737-700s and 737-800s of the Next Generation were added later.

The most remarkable chapter, though, was the ATR era. Jet Time flew ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 turboprops, with the eight ATR 72-600s flying for SAS on Scandinavian regional routes. In November 2016, SAS announced it would end this contract in early 2017 – the airline wanted to use larger aircraft on regional routes as well. Jet Time then gave up its ATR fleet. Since then, the airline has been a pure Boeing operator again.

Bankruptcy and restart (2020–2021)

The pandemic hit the charter business particularly hard. In June 2020, Jet Time laid off most of its workforce, and on July 21, 2020, the bankruptcy filing followed. In parallel, the new Jettime had already been founded on June 8, 2020. It took over the managing director, key employees and five Boeing 737s of the old company.

Important for context: the new Jettime received its own new air operator certificate (AOC) and started flight operations in July 2021. Legally, it is not simply the old airline with a new logo but a new company building on its know-how and parts of its fleet. Since then, the fleet has grown again.

Codes and callsign

• ICAO code JTD: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers when Jettime flies under its own name.
• Callsign JETTIME: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.
• Registration OY-: Jettime aircraft are registered in Denmark and carry the Danish prefix.

With an ACMI airline, though, these codes alone are not enough. When Jettime flies a wet lease for another airline, the flight usually runs under that airline’s flight number. Whether the tracker then shows JTD or the customer’s callsign depends on the particular agreement. How flight number and callsign relate is covered in the post on the difference between callsign and flight number.

The fleet: Boeing 737-800

Today’s Jettime relies almost entirely on one type: the Boeing 737-800. Reference sources list about a dozen aircraft, each with 189 seats in a single class. In addition, a single Boeing 737-700 was most recently listed (as of 2025). No firm new orders with Boeing are recorded – typical for charter airlines that mostly work with leased, used aircraft.

Type	Status	Seats	Spotter note
Boeing 737-800	current, backbone of the fleet	189	Almost every Jettime sighting today
Boeing 737-700	one aircraft most recently (as of 2025)	148	Shorter fuselage, rare subject
Boeing 737-300/-400/-500	historic (Jet Time)	–	Classic generation, only in archive photos
ATR 72-500	historic (Jet Time)	–	Turboprop, only in archive photos
ATR 72-600	historic, until 2017 for SAS	–	Eight aircraft flying for SAS

A uniform type has clear advantages for an ACMI business: crews, spare parts and maintenance stay manageable, and every aircraft can take on any assignment. For you as a spotter, that means the type alone is hardly exciting – the interesting details are in the registration and the purpose of the flight.

737-800 or 737-700? And what about the ATR?

With today’s fleet, the main question is whether you are looking at the 737-800. The 737-700 is only a footnote at Jettime, but you will come across it in archive photos and at other airlines. How to tell all the 737 generations apart is shown in the guide Telling apart the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX.

You no longer need to look for the ATR 72 at Jettime. The turboprops from the SAS era are long since with other operators or retired. If you see an ATR with an OY- registration in Scandinavia today, it belongs to a different airline – for example DAT Danish Air Transport. You can find more on the current turboprop on the page for the ATR 72-600 and at the manufacturer ATR.

How to recognize Jettime

The most reliable combination is: Boeing 737-800, Danish OY- registration and the Jettime name on the aircraft – cross-checked with the tracker code JTD. Because the fleet is so small, it is worth noting down the individual registrations – after a few sightings you will know a good part of the fleet.

The purpose of the flight is typical as well. Jettime flies many destinations that fit vacations and sports better than business travel. According to reference sources, these include Greek islands such as Rhodes, Crete and Corfu, the Canary Islands, Mallorca, Turkish resorts such as Antalya and Dalaman, in winter Alpine airports such as Innsbruck, Salzburg, Grenoble and Chambéry, as well as Greenland with Kangerlussuaq, Narsarsuaq and Nuuk. On top of that come numerous airports in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Jettime in the Danish market

Denmark has a long charter tradition. Historic names such as Sterling Airways and Maersk Air shaped the market for decades. Today, holiday traffic out of Scandinavia is shared mainly by tour-operator airlines such as Sunclass Airlines and TUI fly Nordic as well as the low-cost and network airlines.

Jettime fills a niche here: it is flexible enough to fly chain charters for operators and, at the same time, quickly available when another airline needs an aircraft because of maintenance, disruptions or seasonal peaks. The connection to Greenland plays a special role: for Air Greenland, reference sources name Jettime as a wet-lease partner.

Spotting Jettime

Your best chances are at the Danish bases. The airline is headquartered at Copenhagen-Kastrup, and its aircraft are regularly parked there. A classic place for this is the Flyvergrillen at Copenhagen Airport; the plane spotting guide for Copenhagen collects further spots and tips. At Billund Airport in Jutland, too, Jettime is a base airline. In addition, reference sources list operations from Finland, including Helsinki Airport.

In Germany, Jettime is a rare sighting. You are most likely to meet the airline when a Scandinavian club plays an away game or a corporate charter is on. Such flights are not in the normal schedule – here, only a look at the tracker helps. If you want to place your sighting later, the post How rare is my sighting? gives you good guidance.

Common mix-ups

• Equating Jet Time and Jettime – the old Jet Time went bankrupt in 2020; today’s Jettime has flown under its own AOC since 2021.
• Taking an ATR 72 with an OY- registration for Jettime – the ATR era ended in 2017; today other Danish operators fly turboprops.
• Logging the customer as the operator – if a Jettime 737 flies for SAS or Norwegian, Jettime is the operator, even if the flight number is different.
• Taking Jettime for a scheduled airline – at its core, it is a charter and ACMI airline with no hub of its own and no alliance.
• Taking every OY- 737 for Jettime – only titles, registration and tracker code together are conclusive.

Conclusion

Jettime is not an airline you tick off from a schedule but one that surprises you. The Danish charter and ACMI airline today flies a nearly uniform fleet of Boeing 737-800s, works for tour operators, sports clubs and other airlines, and has an exciting chapter behind it with the ATR era for SAS. If you note registration, tracker code and purpose of the flight together, you can place every Jettime sighting cleanly.