SmartLynx Airlines

When a summer airline connection was suddenly flown with an unfamiliar aircraft, a wet-lease airline was often behind it – and one of the best known came from Latvia: SmartLynx Airlines. For three decades, the company flew out of Riga for other airlines, with A320s, A321s and later converted A321P2F freighters. In November 2025, it was over. This page shows you what made SmartLynx what it was, how to match the aircraft in your photos, and why the airline is now a case for the archive.

SmartLynx at a glance

SmartLynx Airlines was a Latvian ACMI airline based in Mārupe, right at Riga Airport. It was founded in 1992 as LatCharter and began flight operations in 1993 with a leased Tupolev Tu-134 – typical for a young airline in the Baltics shortly after the end of the Soviet Union. The name SmartLynx followed in 2008.

The business model was different from the start compared with scheduled airlines like airBaltic. SmartLynx sold hardly any tickets of its own, instead providing aircraft with crew, maintenance and insurance to other airlines and tour operators. This principle is called ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance), or wet lease for short. The article Wet lease explained explains exactly how it works.

Ownership changed several times: in the mid-2000s, the leasing arm of Icelandair Group came on board and later took over the whole company. In 2012, managers bought the airline back, in 2016 it went to a Dutch investment fund, and in 2019 SmartLynx became part of the Lithuanian Avia Solutions Group. The group included two subsidiaries: SmartLynx Airlines Estonia in Tallinn (since 2012) and SmartLynx Airlines Malta (since 2019).

Codes, subsidiaries and registrations

With an ACMI airline, attribution is trickier than with Ryanair or Lufthansa. The reason: the flight number almost always belongs to the customer. When SmartLynx flew for easyJet, the departure board showed an easyJet flight number. On flight trackers and on the radio, however, the ICAO code of the operating company often appeared instead.

Company	Country	ICAO code	Registration prefix	Notes
SmartLynx Airlines	Latvia	LYX	YL-	Parent company, IATA code 6Y
SmartLynx Airlines Estonia	Estonia	MYX	ES-	Based in Tallinn, callsign “TALLINN CAT”, latterly A320s
SmartLynx Airlines Malta	Malta	–	9H-	Most of the freighters and the Boeing 737 MAX 8

For you as a spotter, that means the registration is the most important identifier for SmartLynx. A YL- on the tail points to the Latvian company, an ES- to the Estonian subsidiary, a 9H- to the Maltese one. Why Malta is such a popular country of registration is explained in the article Offshore registrations and leasing. For the basics on the prefixes, see Understanding aircraft registrations.

The fleet: A320 family, freighters and a few oddballs

The fleet was built for quick deployment with changing customers – and therefore almost entirely Airbus. In early 2025, the group comprised around 57 aircraft according to published fleet overviews:

Type	Number (approx., early 2025)	Use	Spotter tip
Airbus A320-200	26	Passengers, spread across Latvia, Estonia and Malta	The workhorse, usually with 180 seats
Airbus A321-200	8	Passengers	Longer fuselage, extra doors directly ahead of and behind the wing instead of overwing exits
Airbus A321-200P2F	10	Cargo, mostly Malta	Windowless, large cargo door at the front left
Boeing 737 MAX 8	12	Passengers, Malta	The group’s only Boeing type
Airbus A330-300	1	Malta	The group’s only widebody jet

The Airbus A320 was the backbone: with it, SmartLynx covered summer peaks at European airlines or stepped in when a customer had to send its own aircraft into maintenance. The A321 added more seats to the offering. Both come from Airbus. Unsure how to tell them apart? The article Telling the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart helps.

The Boeing 737 MAX 8 came to the Maltese subsidiary after a 2022 lease agreement with SMBC Aviation Capital. For an airline that otherwise flew almost only Airbus, this was a significant step: customers with Boeing fleets could get replacement aircraft in their own type.

The A321P2F freighters

For many spotters, SmartLynx became interesting because of the freighters. As early as 2021, the airline agreed a partnership with DHL: two A321s of the Maltese subsidiary flew cargo for a Deutsche Post subsidiary. From 2022, converted A321P2Fs were added, which SmartLynx received through a conversion program with the lessor Aero Capital Solutions. In early 2025, about ten such freighters were in the group fleet, most with Maltese registrations.

The A321P2F is not a newly built freighter but a converted passenger jet. Typical features are:

• plugged windows along the whole length, often only hinted at as an outline in the livery,
• a large cargo door at the front left ahead of the wing,
• the cabin doors remain visible from outside but are hardly used anymore,
• the A321 silhouette with the long fuselage and the doors directly ahead of and behind the wing is retained.

There is a risk of confusion with the shorter A320P2F, which is based on the same principle. Pay attention to the fuselage length and the doors around the wing. You will find more tips on freighters in the article Recognizing cargo aircraft.

How to recognize SmartLynx jets

Don’t expect a uniform livery like Ryanair’s with SmartLynx. Depending on the contract, an aircraft flew in a plain, largely neutral livery or carried the customer’s name or parts of its livery for the duration of the assignment. There were also hybrids in which old colors of a previous owner were still visible. The article Recognizing hybrid liveries explains such cases.

Because the look was so changeable, these features are more reliable:

1. Registration: YL-, ES- or 9H- on an Airbus of the A320 family was a strong hint.
2. Tracker data: LYX or MYX in the callsign, even though the flight number belonged to another airline.
3. Season: SmartLynx was mainly on the move in summer, when airlines needed extra capacity.
4. Context: an unfamiliar Airbus on a route that is otherwise flown by an airline with a uniform fleet.

Customers and areas of operation

SmartLynx flew in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Named customers included easyJet, Air Transat, AnadoluJet, IndiGo and Nigeria’s Air Peace in passenger service, and DHL in cargo. Contracts often ran for only one season, and aircraft regularly moved between customers and continents.

There are figures for the scale from 2024: according to the trade press, SmartLynx operated around 68,000 flights and carried about 10.6 million passengers. Because almost all of them were under other airlines’ flight numbers, most travelers had never heard the name SmartLynx.

The home remained the Baltics: the parent company was based in Riga, the Estonian subsidiary at Tallinn Airport, and the Maltese company in Malta, run from Malta Airport.

The end in November 2025

In October 2025, Avia Solutions Group sold SmartLynx. Around 90 percent of the shares went to a Dutch foundation for distressed assets, with the CEO and the CFO taking five percent each. A few days later, a court-supervised restructuring procedure began in Riga.

On November 24, 2025, SmartLynx announced that it was ceasing flight operations with immediate effect. The aircraft stayed on the ground, and the operating licenses in Latvia, Estonia and Malta were reportedly suspended, later revoked for the Estonian subsidiary. An insolvency filing followed shortly afterward. Reports cite liabilities of around 238 million euros. Customers such as Air Peace complained about the sudden withdrawal of leased aircraft, and employees about unpaid wages. Authorities are examining the events; results of these investigations were not available at press time.

SmartLynx thus joins a series of airline collapses in Europe. For an overview of earlier cases, see Big airline collapses in Europe.

What happens to the aircraft

In an insolvency, leased aircraft generally go back to the lessors. Many of the A320s, A321s and freighters are therefore likely to reappear with other operators – with a new registration and new livery. How such changes work is described in the article Re-registrations, and why so many airline aircraft don’t actually belong to the airline is explained in Aircraft leasing.

For your collection, this means: with every sighting, always note the serial number alongside the registration and type if you can find it out. It stays the same across all re-registrations. That way you can later tell that the A320 at a new airline is the same aircraft you photographed years ago as a YL- jet on wet lease.

Common mix-ups

• Equating the customer flight number with the operator – on wet lease, SmartLynx flew under other airlines’ flight numbers; the ICAO code showed the real operator.
• Taking every A320 from the Baltics for SmartLynx – Avion Express, GetJet and Heston flew similar fleets.
• Automatically assigning 9H- registrations to Ryanair subsidiaries – SmartLynx Malta also flew with Maltese registrations.
• Confusing the A321P2F with the A320P2F – fuselage length and the doors around the wing decide.
• Confusing SmartLynx with airBaltic – airBaltic is Latvia’s scheduled airline with the A220, SmartLynx was a wet-lease provider with the A320 family.
• Logging SmartLynx as an active airline – it has been defunct since November 2025.

Conclusion

For over 30 years, SmartLynx Airlines was one of the quiet giants of European aviation: barely known to passengers, but popular with spotters because its aircraft kept turning up in unexpected places. Whether an A320 on behalf of easyJet, a 737 MAX from Malta or a windowless A321P2F on the night run – anyone who noted the registration and ICAO code could attribute the jets with confidence. Since the end in November 2025, SmartLynx photos are historical documents, and the aircraft themselves live on with new operators.