AnimaWings

AnimaWings is one of Europe’s youngest airlines, and its story moves fairly fast. It started in 2020 as a small charter operator with Airbus A320s and received factory-new Airbus A220-300s from late 2024. The airline wanted to build an alternative in Romania to TAROM and the big low-cost carriers. In fall 2026 came the crash: insolvency filing, returned aircraft, suspended scheduled flights. For spotters, AnimaWings is therefore a small but fascinating airline. If you have one of its A220s in your logbook, you may already own a piece of contemporary history.

AnimaWings at a glance

AnimaWings is a Romanian airline based in Otopeni, right next to Bucharest Airport. The company was founded in 2019. The initiative came from Cristian Pandel, who built up the tour operator Christian Tour. His goal was a fully Romanian airline that would take over vacation flights for the tour operator group and also offer scheduled service. In July 2020, AnimaWings received its air operator certificate and began charter flights, in the middle of the pandemic.

The hub is Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport (OTP), and another base is in Timișoara in the west of the country. From there and from other Romanian cities such as Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Oradea, Craiova or Suceava, AnimaWings flew to destinations in Europe, Israel, Turkey and the Gulf region. The schedule included, for example, London Gatwick, Geneva, Stockholm, Prague, Larnaca, Istanbul and Dubai. In summer, many vacation destinations in Greece and Spain were added.

AnimaWings does not belong to an alliance. Because of the earlier stake held by Aegean Airlines, however, there is a codeshare with the Greeks.

Codes and callsigns

• IATA code A2: appears in the flight number, so on the departure board, ticket and in timetables.
• ICAO code AWG: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on most flight trackers.
• Callsign ANIMA WINGS: how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

With the ICAO code AWG, you find an AnimaWings aircraft on the tracker fastest. A filter on AWG shows you right away whether any of the few aircraft is in the air at all. Especially in the current situation, that is helpful. How to use ADS-B data for this is explained in the guide to flight tracking for spotters.

Ownership: from Aegean to Christian Tour

The owners have changed several times in just a few years. For spotters, this also explains why there are connections to Greece.

Date	Event
2019	Founded on the initiative of Cristian Pandel (Christian Tour)
March 2020	Aegean Airlines takes 25 percent
July 2020	AOC granted, start of charter operations
January 2021	First tickets in its own online sales
October 2021	Aegean raises its stake to 51 percent
February 2024	Memento Group takes over the Aegean shares and becomes sole owner
December 2024	First A220-300 in Bucharest, first scheduled flight to Dubai on December 28
April 2026	Consortium wants to take 50 percent, the deal falls through
September 30, 2026	Insolvency filing at the court in Bucharest

After the 2024 purchase, AnimaWings had big plans. Twelve new aircraft in three years were announced, including A220s and A320neos. Later the airline spoke of 18 aircraft by the end of 2027. The A320neos never arrived in the fleet.

The fleet: A220-300 and A320

For a young airline, AnimaWings has an unusual type mix: besides the proven A320, it flies the Airbus A220-300, an aircraft rarely seen in Romania otherwise. According to the airline’s fleet overview, the fleet in 2026 looked like this:

Type	Number	Seats	Use	Spotter tip
Airbus A220-300	6	137 (12 business, 125 economy) or 148 (economy only)	Scheduled flights from Bucharest	Factory-new from late 2024, leased; two aircraft returned in late September 2026
Airbus A320-200	2	up to 180	Charter, later also scheduled	First generation, at times the only active aircraft in fall 2026

The A320 was AnimaWings’ first aircraft. With it, the airline flew charters for tour operators from 2020. It is a classic first-generation Airbus A320. These aircraft are not neos: they have the smaller engines and no larger air intakes. How to reliably separate the two generations is shown in the article A320neo or ceo?.

The A220-300 was meant to bring the airline into scheduled service. The type was originally developed by Bombardier as the CSeries and has been called the A220 since Airbus took over. The aircraft for AnimaWings were built at the Mirabel plant near Montréal. The first one made its test flight there in November 2024 and came to Bucharest in December. On December 28, 2024, it flew the first scheduled flight to Dubai. The third aircraft, registered YR-GUN, landed in Bucharest in September 2025 directly from Canada.

All A220s are leased. According to the Romanian trade press, four come from the US lessor Azorra, two from another lessor. How such contracts work and why aircraft can go back quickly when problems arise is explained in the article on aircraft leasing.

A220 or A320? How to tell them apart

Both types carry the Airbus name and the same livery. Still, they are easy to tell apart once you know what to look for.

Most reliable is the nose: the A220’s cockpit looks completely different from that of any A320. From below on approach, too, the A220 stands out immediately, because the engines look almost as big as the fuselage cross-section. If you want to compare the A220 at other airlines, you will find it in large numbers at airBaltic or Swiss. The shorter version is presented on the page about the A220-100.

How to recognize AnimaWings

Because the fleet is so small, a close look at the registration is worthwhile. All aircraft are registered in Romania and carry the prefix YR-. On the A220s, endings that sound like English words stand out: YR-GUN, YR-BUN and YR-RUN belong to the A220 fleet. How registrations are structured and what the prefix reveals is explained in the basics article on aircraft registrations.

The fuselage carries the “AnimaWings” titles. The A320s initially flew in a different livery than today, so in older photos you see different colors. If you want to document such changes, the guide to mixed liveries after leasing or airline changes helps.

Insolvency in fall 2026: what is known

At the end of September 2026, events came thick and fast. Here is the status as the Romanian trade press describes it through mid-October 2026:

Whether AnimaWings takes off again after the proceedings, is restructured or is shut down is open. The situation can change quickly. So always check the current status before you plan a trip. For Romania it is not the first airline crisis: Blue Air ceased operations in 2022. The article on major airline bankruptcies in Europe gives an overview of similar cases.

Spotting AnimaWings

In Germany, Munich was the most important destination: from late 2025, AnimaWings flew the A220 from Bucharest to Munich Airport. There, the visitors’ hill is a convenient starting point. Since October 2026, however, scheduled flights have been suspended, so be sure to check the schedule or the tracker beforehand.

You see the most AnimaWings in Bucharest Otopeni, where the aircraft sit between assignments. In summer, the A320s also turned up on charter service at Greek and Spanish vacation airports. The difference between charter and scheduled operations explains why these flights are often missing from normal timetables. You can read more under Charter flight vs. scheduled flight.

On the Romanian market, you meet AnimaWings alongside TAROM, HiSky and the big low-cost carrier Wizz Air, which has several bases in Romania. Comparing the fleets helps with pre-sorting: Wizz Air flies the A320 and A321 family, TAROM Boeing and ATR. An A220 with a YR registration is very likely AnimaWings.

Common mix-ups

• Taking A2 for a country code: A2 is purely an airline designator and belongs to AnimaWings.
• Assigning every YR registration to TAROM: AnimaWings, HiSky and other Romanian operators also fly with YR-.
• Logging the A320s as neos: AnimaWings operates first-generation A320s; the announced neos never joined the fleet.
• Confusing the A220 with an Embraer jet: Both are slim twinjets, but the A220 has five instead of four seats per row, larger engines and a completely different cockpit.
• Taking AnimaWings for an Aegean subsidiary: That was true from 2021 to 2024. Since then the airline has belonged entirely to the Memento Group.

Conclusion

AnimaWings shows in miniature how quickly an airline can grow and stumble again. It began with charters on the A320 and then had factory-new A220-300s on scheduled routes across Europe. Only six years after its first flight came the insolvency filing. For spotters, it is one of the few airlines where every single sighting counts. Once the aircraft are with new operators, the combination of A220 and AnimaWings titles may no longer exist.