Wamos Air

Wamos Air is one of those airlines you often see without noticing. The departure board says Iberia, Condor or an airline from the other end of the world, but what landed is a Spanish A330 with an EC- registration. Behind it is a charter and wet lease airline from Madrid that began as the airline of a cruise operator and flew jumbos for a long time. Here you can read how Wamos works, what became of the 747s and how to reliably recognize the airline’s A330s.

Wamos Air at a glance

Wamos Air is a Spanish charter and ACMI airline based in Madrid. Its aircraft are at home at Madrid-Barajas Airport, but they are deployed wherever a customer needs capacity. By its own account, Wamos serves around 200 airports in 87 countries and calls itself Europe’s leading provider of charter and wet lease flights – that is self-presentation, not an independent ranking.

Its customers are airlines, tour operators, large companies and governments. Customers include Iberia, Vueling, TUI and Condor. The airline has not sold its own tickets since 2022: it gave up its last scheduled flights then and has since concentrated entirely on charter and wet lease.

Since October 2024, Wamos has belonged to the Abra Group, the holding company behind Avianca and GOL. Brand and flight operations remained independent.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code EB: used on its own charter flights. When Wamos flies for another airline, the flight number usually carries that airline’s code.
• ICAO code PLM: the operator code in the flight plan and thus what many flight trackers show you.
• Callsign PULLMAN: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

PLM and PULLMAN date from the time as Pullmantur Air. Both were kept at the renaming – a nice detail for anyone who listens to radio. Why flight number, callsign and operating airline are not the same is explained in Callsign and flight number: the difference. You will find the system behind the codes in IATA and ICAO codes explained.

From Pullmantur Air to Wamos Air

The airline came into being on June 23, 2003 as the aviation arm of the Spanish travel and cruise company Pullmantur, which then belonged to the Grupo Marsans. The purpose was clear: guests of Pullmantur cruises were to reach the ships on aircraft of their own, mainly in the Caribbean. In its founding year, Pullmantur Air received its air operator certificate.

In 2006, Royal Caribbean took over the Pullmantur business and with it the airline. From 2011, Pullmantur Air also flew scheduled flights of its own, for example from Madrid to Cancún and Punta Cana. In 2012 came IATA’s IOSA registration, an important safety seal for airlines that fly for others.

In 2014, Royal Caribbean sold the majority stake of 81 percent to the investor Springwater Capital. Shortly afterward the airline appeared as Wamos Air. You can read more about the early phase on the separate page for Pullmantur Air.

How the business works: charter and wet lease

Wamos sells capacity, not seats. Under the ACMI model, also called wet lease, the airline provides a customer with aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance. The customer sets routes and schedule and markets the seats itself. Typical occasions are bottlenecks in its own fleet, for example when engines are in the shop, peaks in peak season or new routes an airline wants to test first. The principle is explained in Wet lease explained.

Alongside that, Wamos flies classic charter: for tour operators, sports clubs, companies or governments. You can read about the difference from scheduled service in Charter flights and scheduled flights.

Use	What Wamos provides	What the customer does	Spotter consequence
Wet lease / ACMI	A330, crew, maintenance, insurance	Route, schedule, ticket sales	Wamos A330 under a customer flight number
Long-term leasing	Aircraft over a longer period	Operation in its own network	A330 with an EC- registration, often in customer colors
Charter	Complete aircraft for one assignment	Group, trip or event	Individual flights, also at unusual airports
Freight in a passenger aircraft	A330 with cargo in the cabin and belly	Cargo customer	Passenger A330 on cargo routes

For you as a spotter, this means: at Wamos the flight number says little. What matters are type, registration and callsign.

Well-known assignments around the world

A few documented contracts show how far Wamos gets around. From November 2022 to April 2024, the airline flew daily between Auckland and Perth for Air New Zealand with its own A330-200s and its own crews. From June 2024, Philippine Airlines used two Wamos A330-200s for a few months between Manila and Sydney or Melbourne, because its own aircraft were missing due to supply chain problems.

Closer to Europe, Wamos most recently flew for Air Europa between Madrid and New York JFK, for Iberia out of Madrid and for TAP Air Portugal between Lisbon and Fortaleza (as of 2025). According to the Spanish Wikipedia, individual aircraft are also leased to airlines such as LATAM, Saudia and Avianca. Such contracts expire and are reassigned – you should check before a trip whether they still exist in October 2026.

The fleet: only the Airbus A330 now

According to Wamos Air’s fleet overview, the fleet consists of 13 Airbus A330s. The airline emphasizes that the cabins are configured very differently – customers can partly put together the layout themselves. There is therefore no uniform seat count.

Type	Number	Registrations (according to Wamos)	Spotter tip
Airbus A330-300	8	EC-OLG, EC-ODR, EC-ODQ, EC-NHM, EC-NOF, EC-NOG, EC-NTX, EC-NYJ	Longer fuselage, largest group in the fleet
Airbus A330-200	5	EC-ODP, EC-MAJ, EC-NBN, EC-NCK, EC-NUI	Shorter, longer range, workhorse for long wet lease routes

The mix has changed quickly. In 2019, by its own account, Wamos still flew five Boeing 747-400s and seven A330-200s; in 2022 it was four A330-200s and five A330-300s. Since then it is mainly the A330-300 that has been added. Both variants are manufactured by Airbus.

A330-200 or A330-300?

At first glance both versions look the same: two engines, the same wings, the same cockpit. The difference lies in the fuselage length. The A330-300 is about five meters longer, which you can recognize by more windows between door 1 and the wing as well as behind the wing. The shorter A330-200 has a slightly taller vertical stabilizer to compensate for the shorter lever arm.

A330 or A340? The classic mix-up

Wamos no longer flies any four-engine jets. Even so, a Wamos A330 is often mistaken for an A340 – no wonder, since both types share fuselage, cockpit and wings. The reliable feature: the A330 has two engines, the A340-300 four. The A340 also carries an additional main landing gear under the fuselage. All the details are shown in A330 or A340? Recognizing engine count, landing gear and variants.

The jumbo era (historic)

For a long time the Boeing 747 was the face of the airline. From 2003, Pullmantur Air already flew three Boeing 747-200s in the combi version 747-200BM and one 747-300. All four left the fleet in 2008.

After that the Boeing 747-400 took over. According to ch-aviation, the airline operated eight 747-400s over the years, but never more than six at once. The jumbos brought cruise guests and vacationers to the Caribbean, helped out other airlines – in 2018, for example, LATAM, when a Boeing 787 there was out of service because of engine problems – and, in dense seating, were regularly used for pilgrimage flights for Garuda Indonesia between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

The pandemic brought the end. In spring 2020, the jumbos still brought stranded vacationers home, including two flights from Madrid to Hawaii. The last rotation was flown by EC-KXN on July 19, 2020, as a repatriation flight from Windhoek to Frankfurt. After that it stood parked in Madrid until it left Spain for good on March 26, 2021 – that made the 747 history at Wamos. The 747-400s that left during 2020 included EC-KXN, EC-LNA, EC-KQC, EC-MDS, EC-KSM, EC-MQK and EC-MRM.

Why four-engine widebodies disappeared almost everywhere in this period is explained in The end of the four-engine jets. How to tell the jumbo generations apart on old photos is covered in Boeing 747-100 to 747-8.

How to recognize Wamos Air

Many Wamos aircraft fly in the house livery with the airline’s titles, while others are leased long term and wear the customer’s colors or titles. So don’t rely on the paint alone. The most reliable way to recognize Wamos:

• Type: always an Airbus A330, either -200 or -300.
• Registration: Spanish registration with EC-. The current list is in the fleet table above. How registrations are structured is explained in Understanding aircraft registrations, and you will find the country prefixes in Aircraft country codes.
• Tracker and radio: ICAO PLM, callsign PULLMAN – unless the flight runs under the customer’s code.
• Location: Madrid-Barajas as home, plus changing wet lease routes worldwide.

Spotting Wamos Air in Madrid, Europe and Germany

Your best chances are at Madrid-Barajas. The aircraft are at home there, that is where they are maintained and parked between two contracts. A well-known location with a view of the runways is described on the page for La Muñoza at Madrid-Barajas Airport, and further tips are in Plane spotting at Madrid-Barajas. Before you head out in Spain, a look at Spotting in Spain is worthwhile.

Depending on the contract, the A330s also show up elsewhere, for example at Lisbon Airport on assignments for TAP or in New York on flights for Air Europa. In Germany you mainly see Wamos on charter flights or when an airline like Condor needs a widebody at short notice. There is no timetable for that.

Because a wet lease A330 often comes only once a day, good planning pays off: check the runway direction in use, plan the sun position for the long side of the fuselage and be on site in good time.

Common mix-ups

• Thinking Wamos and Pullmantur are two airlines – it is the same company, just with a new name since 2014.
• Attributing the callsign PULLMAN to a cruise company – it now belongs to Wamos Air.
• Thinking the customer is the operator – in wet lease the customer’s flight number is on the board, but Wamos does the flying.
• Logging an A330 as an A340 – Wamos flies only twinjets; four engines mean a different airline.
• Still expecting jumbos – the last Wamos 747 left the fleet in March 2021.
• Thinking every Spanish A330 is Wamos – Iberia, Air Europa, Iberojet and Plus Ultra also fly A330s with EC- registrations.

Conclusion

Wamos Air is an airline for spotters who look closely. From the cruise feeder Pullmantur Air through the jumbo years to today’s A330 fleet, it has developed into a wet lease airline that has operated between Madrid, Lisbon, New York and Auckland. If you watch for EC- registrations, the code PLM and the callsign PULLMAN, you will discover Wamos even under someone else’s flight number.