Swiftair

Swiftair is one of those airlines you almost never find on a departure board – and still can photograph regularly if you know when and where. The Spaniards fly parcels for big express carriers at night, lease out aircraft complete with crew to other airlines and, on the side, operate turboprops between the Balearic Islands. This page shows you how to recognize Swiftair aircraft with confidence, which types are in the fleet and where your chances are best.

Swiftair at a glance

Swiftair is a Spanish cargo and ACMI airline based in Madrid. It was founded in 1986 and started out very small: with two aircraft in passenger service. In the 1990s cargo was added – and with it the business that still defines Swiftair today: flights on behalf of other companies, often at night, often under someone else’s flight number.

Swiftair describes itself as one of Spain’s three largest airlines by fleet size. That sounds surprising, because hardly any vacationer knows the name. The reason is the business model: instead of selling tickets to end customers, Swiftair provides aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance to customers. Experts call this ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance). How such contracts work is explained in the article Wet lease explained.

The day-to-day business covers three main areas:

• Overnight express: regular and individually planned cargo flights for parcel and express carriers.
• Passenger flights for other airlines: domestic and international, plus special flights on customer request.
• Regional markets: connections to the Balearics, the Canary Islands, Madeira, North and West Africa, and Cyprus.

The main location is Madrid-Barajas. Swiftair does not belong to an alliance – for an airline that flies on behalf of others, that would make little sense anyway.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code WT: appears mainly in flight plans when Swiftair flies under its own number.
• ICAO code SWT: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and therefore on most flight trackers.
• Callsign SWIFT: how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

With an ACMI airline this distinction matters. A parcel flight in an express carrier’s network can run in the customer’s booking system under its code while the tracker still shows SWT. For your notes, the rule is therefore: record the registration and the operating airline, not just the flight number. How to read tracker data correctly is shown in the guide to Flight tracking for spotters.

The Swiftair group

Swiftair is long since more than a single airline. The parent company is called Lusat Air, and several companies hang below it, each bringing its own codes and registrations for spotters.

Company	Role	Special feature
Swiftair	Core company in Madrid	ICAO SWT, Spanish EC registrations
West Atlantic	Cargo group from Sweden and the UK	Majority since 2019, own codes and registrations
Cygnus Air	Spanish cargo airline	Acquired in 2018, brought Boeing 757 freighters
Uep!Fly	Island service in the Balearics	ATR 72s between Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza
Swiftair Hellas	Greek subsidiary	Complements the group in the eastern Mediterranean

The biggest step was the stake in West Atlantic: in April 2019 Lusat Air agreed to become majority shareholder of the cargo group in return for a capital injection of €20 million. Like Swiftair, West Atlantic flies Boeing 737 freighters and ATRs in overnight express. At the spot you tell the two apart mainly by the registration and the ICAO code.

As early as October 2018, Swiftair had taken over the Spanish Cygnus Air, gaining access to the Boeing 757 as a freighter. In April 2020 the first 757 freighter of its own then joined the Swiftair fleet.

The fleet: freighters, turboprops and plenty of conversions

Typical of Swiftair is a mixed fleet of used passenger aircraft converted to freighters, plus rugged turboprops for short routes. According to fleet overviews as of 2025/2026 it comprises just over 40 aircraft. The exact numbers differ by source and change quickly at an ACMI airline – so take them as an order of magnitude.

Type	Role	Max. payload per Swiftair	Spotter tip
Boeing 737-400SF	Night cargo, also for DHL	n/a	Classic 737 with engine nacelles flattened at the bottom (CFM56)
Boeing 737-800BCF/BDSF	Night cargo, also for DHL	n/a	NG generation, larger cargo door at the front left
Boeing 757-200F	High-payload cargo	32,000 kg	Largest type in the fleet
Airbus A321P2F	Cargo	27,000 kg	Converted A321, windows plugged
ATR 72 (200F, 500F, 600F)	Regional cargo	8,000 kg (72-200F/500F)	Turboprop with a large cargo door
ATR 72-500	Passenger flights, including Uep!Fly	–	With a row of windows and a cabin
ATR 42	Small cargo and quick-change deployments	n/a	Shorter fuselage than the ATR 72

The Boeing 737 freighters are the backbone of the express business. The Boeing 737-400SF is a converted Classic-generation passenger aircraft, while the 737-800BCF and its sister conversions come from the Next Generation. You recognize both by the missing row of windows and the large cargo door at the front on the left side. How to reliably tell the 737 generations apart is shown in the guide Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart.

With up to 32 metric tons of payload, the Boeing 757-200F is the heavyweight of the fleet. Newer in the inventory is the Airbus A321P2F, an A321 converted into a freighter. It is one of the successors to older 737 freighters in many European fleets.

For turboprop fans Swiftair is especially interesting: the airline operates numerous ATRs in several versions, from the ATR 72-200 through the ATR 72-500 to the ATR 72-600F, plus the smaller ATR 42-300. The manufacturer is the French-Italian company ATR.

Embraer, Metro and Convair: the turboprop past

If you look through older spotter photos of Swiftair, you come across a completely different fleet. For decades the airline was a collecting point for small and medium propeller aircraft:

• Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia: around ten aircraft, mainly as a small freighter with up to 3.5 metric tons of payload. The Brasilia was retired around 2023/24. It is still listed on the Swiftair website, but current fleet lists show it only as a former type. You will find more on the manufacturer at Embraer.
• Fairchild Swearingen Metro: a dozen aircraft between 1990 and 2008, for small express loads.
• Convair CV-580: about ten aircraft from the mid-1990s to 2006.
• Jets in retirement: Boeing 727-200F from 1999 to 2012, earlier Boeing 737-300 freighters as well as MD-83s and an MD-87 on wet lease.

For your archive that means: a Swiftair Brasilia or Metro is a historic sighting today. If you have old photos, it is worth logging them properly with registration and date – such pictures are in demand in the community.

Passengers: from Air Europa to Uep!Fly

Even though cargo dominates, Swiftair has never quite stopped carrying people. For years the airline flew ATR 72s on behalf of Air Europa, on domestic routes to and from Madrid, for example.

When Air Europa ended the cooperation during the COVID crisis, Swiftair went its own way: since summer 2021 the group brand Uep!Fly has connected Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza with ATR 72 turboprops. Since 2023 Air Europa has again sold these flights via codeshare. If you see an ATR with a Spanish registration among the vacation jets at Palma de Mallorca Airport, it is worth a second look – tips for the island are in Plane spotting on Mallorca.

In addition there are special flights on customer request, and in the past deployments for the United Nations as well. Among its customers in the Canary Islands, Canaryfly is named, among others.

How to recognize Swiftair

Swiftair has no uniform livery. Many aircraft are white with rather small Swiftair titles, others wear their customer’s colors – above all DHL yellow. At the spot you therefore do best to proceed in this order:

The interplay with other cargo airlines in the express network is intriguing. On the same evening, aircraft from Swiftair, West Atlantic, ASL Airlines Belgium and European Air Transport Leipzig can be standing at a hub – in some cases in very similar customer liveries. If you want to understand the big parcel networks, read Express integrators DHL, FedEx and UPS and have a look at the page on DHL Aviation.

Spotting Swiftair: where and when

Swiftair has no classic passenger timetable that you can simply look up. Your best chances are where express networks have their nodes:

Because many movements take place in the dark, night photography is almost a must. You get help in Photographing aircraft at night. For Leipzig, one of Europe’s most important cargo airports, there is a guide of its own: Plane spotting in Leipzig/Halle. And for the home base, Plane spotting in Madrid-Barajas is worthwhile. How to recognize freighters in general is shown in Recognizing cargo aircraft.

Accidents and investigations

Swiftair’s history also includes two serious accidents that you should know about if you are looking into the airline.

On July 24, 2014, an MD-83 with registration EC-LTV crashed, operated by Swiftair on wet lease for Air Algérie. Flight AH5017 was en route from Ouagadougou to Algiers and was destroyed in Mali; all 116 people on board died. According to the investigators’ final report, ice crystals probably blocked pressure sensors on the engines. The autothrottle then reduced thrust, the aircraft entered a stall, and the crew was unable to recover from it. On September 28, 2026, a Paris criminal court found Swiftair guilty of involuntary manslaughter and imposed the highest fine possible for a company. The court considered deficiencies in crew training a contributing cause. Swiftair had demanded an acquittal and rejected responsibility.

On November 25, 2024, a Boeing 737-400SF with registration EC-MFE, operating for the DHL network, crashed on approach to Vilnius Airport. The aircraft was coming from Leipzig and hit the ground in a residential area just short of the runway. One crew member died, three were injured. An interim report from March 2025 found that the flaps were retracted. At the end of 2025 the investigation was still ongoing, and a final report had only been announced at that point.

Common mix-ups

• Taking every yellow 737 freighter for DHL – DHL has many flights operated by partners like Swiftair. Registration and callsign show who is really flying.
• Confusing Swiftair with West Atlantic – both belong to the same group and fly similar types, but have their own codes and registrations.
• Mistaking the Uep!Fly ATR for Binter or Air Nostrum – in the Balearics the Swiftair brand flies, while Binter is mainly active in the Canary Islands.
• Still putting the EMB 120 on your wish list – the Brasilia is history at Swiftair.
• Reading WT as a customer’s abbreviation – WT is Swiftair’s own IATA code.

Conclusion

Swiftair is an airline for spotters who like to look closer. Behind changing liveries are 737 and 757 freighters, a converted A321 and one of the largest ATR fleets in European cargo traffic. If you note registrations and callsigns, you will attribute the aircraft reliably – and if you own old photos of the Brasilia or Metro, you have a piece of Swiftair history in your archive.