How do I find out if I'm flying SmartLynx instead of easyJet in advance?

kissprudence

Flying to Slovenia in June with easyJet and got a message flash up when I booked the flight saying that easyJet will allocate a small number of flights out of Gatwick to their partner "SmartLynx". I bought the flight anyway and decided to look into it later on. Well, I've had a look this afternoon and am cursing. It's an ageing fleet from a Latvian airline that easyJet have wet leased. There are customer complaints on twitter and photos of a plane that looks like a battered bus!

I am terrified of flying and psych myself up to take one short return flight a year. I have lots of silly rules like: I previously wouldn't fly with Jet2 because they used to have a 30+ year old plane, won't fly out of LBA (even though it is my closest airport) because of the crosswinds, won't fly with Ryanair ever under any circumstances as pilots are encouraged to ration fuel and don't share air safety data. The list goes on. Flying on some crappy old plane and not with the company I booked with is filling me with dread. 

If I could find out in advance that the flight was with SmartLynx then I would rebook with a different airline or to a different city. Problem is that it seems you can only find out up to 48 hours before the flight when the "flight tracker" info is displayed. I tried to contact easyJet to ask but couldn't get through on the phone and their web chat function seemed to be switched off due to demand. Anyone got any inside info on whether I will get a SmartLynx plane on the Gatwick-Ljubljana route?

If possible, please could I not have comments like "it's an EU airline, you'll be fine" - unless you have an irrational fear of flying then I appreciate my post does not make sense and that I will seem like a nutjob! 

bagand96

The short answer is there is no way to guarantee you won't fly on SmartLynx.  However easyJet will base 79 aircraft at Gatwick this summer, and only 6-8 of those will be SmartLynx so it's a pretty small chance.

For a bit more detail you can look at historic flight data and see what aircraft operated.  Flightradar24: Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map is most popular, also On-time Performance, delay statistics and flight information (flightera.net) (slightly less friendly interface, but has more historic data available for free).

A quick look shows that in April and May EZY8421/8422 LGW-LJU has been operated only by easyJet UK aircraft.  Looking the other way at the 6 SmartLynx aircraft with easyJet, none have operated the Ljubljana route.

It's reasonable to assume that for ease of fleet/crew planning the SmartLynx aircraft will operate the same route schedule and it looks so far that Ljubljana is not a SmartLynx route.  However disruption or schedule problems could always mean things change.  Also it appears that 2 SmartLynx aircraft will be at Gatwick purely as standby aircraft, so again on the day anything could happen.

kissprudence

bagand96 said:

The short answer is there is no way to guarantee you won't fly on SmartLynx.  However easyJet will base 79 aircraft at Gatwick this summer, and only 6-8 of those will be SmartLynx so it's a pretty small chance.

For a bit more detail you can look at historic flight data and see what aircraft operated.  Flightradar24: Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map is most popular, also On-time Performance, delay statistics and flight information (flightera.net) (slightly less friendly interface, but has more historic data available for free).

A quick look shows that in April and May EZY8421/8422 LGW-LJU has been operated only by easyJet UK aircraft.  Looking the other way at the 6 SmartLynx aircraft with easyJet, none have operated the Ljubljana route.

It's reasonable to assume that for ease of fleet/crew planning the SmartLynx aircraft will operate the same route schedule and it looks so far that Ljubljana is not a SmartLynx route.  However disruption or schedule problems could always mean things change.  Also it appears that 2 SmartLynx aircraft will be at Gatwick purely as standby aircraft, so again on the day anything could happen.

Thank you so much for looking into this - you've really put my mind at ease :-) 

CKhalvashi

In addition, just to try to calm your nerves, old doesn't necessarily mean bad in terms of aircraft.

I'm married to a pilot and she's seen as many technical faults with very new aircraft at her current airline as to 20 year old aircraft at her old one, although in fairness the ones at her current company are used a lot more heavily (but would never be allowed to fly if unsafe).

We flew twice on a 1973-build AN-24 last year and a 1972-build of the same model in 2019 (both times trying to chase the last AN-140 in commercial service in the world). As long as a plane is properly maintained and flown by properly qualified crews you won't have a problem.

To try to put your mind at rest even more, Smartlynx have their documentation here.

As above though, the aircraft don't appear to be operating the route you're looking at flying on, so this shouldn't be a problem too.