Avia Solutions Group

An A320 taxis to the runway, the titles of a well-known airline on the fuselage – and the tracker reports an operator you would never have booked. Behind such moments, surprisingly often, is a single group: Avia Solutions Group. It hardly sells tickets to passengers but leases aircraft with crew to other airlines through its own airlines. For spotters, this is one of the most exciting corners of aviation – and one of the most confusing. This page shows you how the group is structured, where it comes from and how to attribute its aircraft reliably.

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What Avia Solutions Group actually is

Avia Solutions Group – AviaSG or ASG for short – is an aviation group headquartered in Dublin. It describes itself as the world’s largest ACMI provider. Behind the abbreviation is a simple principle: Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance. An airline that is short of aircraft for the summer rents the complete package from an ACMI provider – aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance. The customer sells the tickets, pays for fuel and fees and flies under its own flight number. The difference from pure leasing without crew is explained in the articles Wet lease explained and Aircraft leasing.

Besides flight operations, the group has built up a broad field of companies around aviation: maintenance companies, a flight school, ground handling, a charter brokerage, leasing and even an aviation news portal. By its own account, more than 11,000 people work for the group, spread across around 100 offices and locations on six continents. Important for you: the holding company itself does not fly. It has neither its own livery nor its own airline code – it becomes visible only through its subsidiaries.

From flyLAL to ACMI group

The roots are in Lithuania. In 2005, the state-owned Lithuanian Airlines was privatized and subsequently flew as flyLAL. In the following years, separate companies grew up around the airline: the maintenance company FL Technics, the flight school Baltic Aviation Academy, which is now called BAA Training, a leasing company and a maintenance company for business jets. Also in 2005, a small airline called Nordic Solutions Air Services started in Vilnius, which became Avion Express in 2008.

In 2010, these companies were brought together under the roof of Avia Solutions Group. flyLAL itself was already history by then – the airline had ceased operations in 2009. In 2011, the group went public on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, and at the end of 2018 it withdrew again. During this time, it grew mainly through acquisitions and new flight operations in other countries.

A turning point came in 2023: the group headquarters moved first to Cyprus and in May to Dublin. Ireland is an obvious place for such a business because many leasing companies are based there and the market for leased aircraft is closely networked. Why so many jets are registered in Ireland, Malta or Bermuda is explained in the article Offshore registrations and leasing. Founder, chairman of the board and majority owner to this day is the Lithuanian entrepreneur Gediminas Žiemelis; in July 2026, Žilvinas Lapinskas took over the role of group CEO.

The airlines under the group’s roof

For you as a spotter, the flight operations are the most interesting part. Each has its own operating certificate (AOC), its own codes and usually its own registration prefix. The following overview shows the most important current and former companies – as of October 2026 and with the caveat that the makeup of this group changes quickly.

Avion Express: the workhorse

Avion Express is the airline you are most likely to see. It flies exclusively models of the Airbus A320 family, that is the A320 and A321. The first A320 came to Vilnius in 2011, the Maltese offshoot started in 2019, the Brazilian one in 2025. Customers are European airlines that absorb peaks in high season – named include Eurowings, Transavia and Air Algérie –, plus tour operators and airlines in Latin America.

2026 was a year of restructuring for Avion Express: the airline returned part of its aircraft to lessors and got new leadership. For you, that means: registrations you noted with NVD a few years ago may now be flying for a completely different operator. How such changes work is described in the article Re-registrations.

KlasJet: charter, sports and VIP

KlasJet was founded by the group in 2013 and is also based in Vilnius. The airline flies Boeing 737s, including older variants such as the 737-300 and 737-500, partly with a VIP cabin, as well as the 737-800. It became known through flights for sports teams, such as the basketball team Žalgiris Kaunas or the Canadian national ice hockey team at the 2018 Olympic Games. In October 2023, KlasJet also agreed additional flights on behalf of El Al. Its ICAO code is KLJ, the callsign “CLASS LINE.”

BBN Airlines and the expansion into Asia

Under the name BBN Airlines, the group operates companies in Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey. The Indonesian BBN started in 2022, received its cargo certificate in 2023 and its passenger certificate in 2024 and flies Boeing 737-800s, including a converted freighter version. The Thai company, previously operating under the name Thai SmartLynx, began its ACMI business in December 2025; Thai Vietjet Air is named as its first customer. In Europe, these aircraft are the big exception.

SmartLynx and Bluebird Nordic: history now

Two well-known names no longer belong to it. The Latvian SmartLynx Airlines joined the group in 2019 and, with A320s, A321s, A321P2F freighters and Boeing 737 MAX 8s, was one of its largest flight operations. In October 2025, the group sold SmartLynx to a Dutch fund; on November 24, 2025, the airline ceased flight operations with immediate effect. The Icelandic cargo airline Bluebird Nordic belonged to the group from 2020 and ended operations on April 30, 2024, after demand for cargo charters had declined.

How ACMI works in practice

To place the group’s aircraft correctly, it helps to look at how a typical contract unfolds. An airline plans its summer schedule and finds it is short a few aircraft for some months – for example because new aircraft arrive later or engines are in the workshop. Instead of permanently adding its own jets and crews, it gets capacity from an ACMI provider.

This very wandering between customers is the appeal: the same A320 can fly Mallorca routes for a German airline in July and be in South America in winter. The group deliberately uses its operations in Europe, Asia and Latin America to shift aircraft between summer and winter markets. As customers of the group, the trade press names, besides many smaller companies, big names such as Lufthansa, Ryanair, Wizz Air, TUI and SAS.

How to recognize the group’s aircraft

With a normal airline, a glance at the tail is often enough. With Avia Solutions Group it rarely works, because the fuselage often bears a customer’s name or none at all. Reliable attribution relies on three features.

First, the registration. Lithuanian aircraft wear LY-, Maltese ones 9H-, Latvian ones wore YL-, Estonian ones ES-. An A320 with LY- and another airline’s name is a strong indicator of Avion Express, a Boeing 737 with LY- rather of KlasJet. Be careful with 9H-: Malta is a popular register, including for subsidiaries of Ryanair Holdings. You will find the basics of the prefixes under Understanding aircraft registrations.

Second, the ICAO code on the tracker. Avion Express transmits as NVD with the callsign “NORDVIND” – a remnant from the days as Nordic Solutions. KlasJet appears as KLJ. Historic SmartLynx flights can be found under LYX. Why callsign and booked flight number often diverge is explained in the article Callsign and flight number; how to query the code live is shown in Flight tracking with ADS-B.

Third, the type. Avion Express flies only Airbus, while KlasJet and BBN Airlines Indonesia fly the Boeing 737. If you see a 737 in a neutral paint scheme with LY-, Avion Express is ruled out. How to tell the A320 and A321 apart reliably is described in the article Telling the A320 family apart.

Hybrid liveries and registration changes

Wet-lease aircraft are a paradise for photographers who collect curiosities. Because contracts are short, a full repaint is rare. Instead, you see white fuselages with stuck-on customer titles, tails in one airline’s color and engine cowlings in another’s. How to classify such hybrids is shown in the article Recognizing hybrid liveries.

Add to that transfers between the group’s flight operations. An aircraft can move from Lithuania to Malta or Brazil and get a new registration in the process – technically the same airframe, on paper a different aircraft. For a clean collection, it is therefore worth noting the serial number (MSN) as well as the registration if you can find it out.

More than airlines: maintenance, training, handling

A large part of the group has nothing directly to do with flight operations. FL Technics handles maintenance, repair and overhaul for commercial aircraft – for its own and other airlines. An overview of such operations in Europe is given in the article Maintenance companies and shipyards in Europe; for comparison, it is worth looking at Lufthansa Technik, one of the big names in the industry.

BAA Training trains pilots and cabin crew and operates simulators. For the ACMI business, that is an important building block because trained crews are the real bottleneck. Chapman Freeborn brokers passenger and cargo charters, while BGS and Aviator handle ground handling and refueling at airports. With AeroTime, an aviation news portal also belongs to the group, and with the AIR Convention, an industry conference.

Where you can spot the group’s aircraft

The group has hardly any fixed hubs with plannable traffic. Your best chance of seeing Avion Express and KlasJet on their own business is at Vilnius Airport, where both are at home and aircraft stand between assignments. Historically, Riga Airport was the home of SmartLynx, complemented by Tallinn Airport and Malta Airport.

In everyday life, though, you meet the jets mainly where their customers fly: at leisure and low-cost airports in the European summer. A look at the ICAO codes in flight tracking shows you where an NVD or KLJ flight is currently on its way. If you are just starting out, the article Plane spotting for beginners will help you with your first trip.

Mistakes that often happen when identifying

• Taking the titles for the operator. If “Eurowings” is on the fuselage, Avion Express can still be flying – the ICAO code settles it.
• Attributing every 9H A320 to a Ryanair subsidiary. Avion Express Malta and, earlier, SmartLynx Malta also flew with Maltese registration.
• Still listing SmartLynx as an active group subsidiary. Since the sale in October 2025 and the end of operations in November 2025, it is history.
• Automatically counting GetJet and Heston as part of the group. Both are independent Lithuanian providers.
• Adopting yesterday’s fleet numbers. With ACMI operations, holdings change from season to season.

Outlook: new markets and own new builds

It is striking how strongly the group is growing outside Europe: with flight operations in Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia and a service center in the Philippines. Behind it is the idea of keeping aircraft utilized all year – here in the European summer, there in winter, where high season is just under way. At the same time, the business is vulnerable: Ascend Airways, the subsidiary launched in Britain in 2024, according to available information gave up its British operating certificate again in April 2026, and Avion Express shrank in the same year.

A signal for the future is the November 2024 order: 40 Boeing 737 MAX 8s with options on 40 more, with deliveries planned from 2030. For a group that has so far worked almost exclusively with leased aircraft, that is a big step. When and at which subsidiaries the aircraft will show up is still open as of October 2026.

Conclusion

Avia Solutions Group is the invisible giant behind many flights you take for perfectly ordinary scheduled flights. Having emerged from the Lithuanian flyLAL world, the group is now based in Dublin and leases aircraft with crew to airlines worldwide through Avion Express, KlasJet and other subsidiaries. SmartLynx and Bluebird Nordic are now history, and new operations in Asia and Latin America have been added.

When spotting, a simple rule therefore applies: don’t trust the titles, check registration, ICAO code and type. If you do that consistently, you turn the most confusing sightings into the most exciting entries in your collection.