Air Montenegro has temporarily leased a 31-year-old Boeing 737-400 from Turkey’s Tailwind Airlines after the delayed delivery of a fourth Embraer E195 left the national carrier short of capacity during the busiest part of the tourism season.
The aircraft is operating under an ACMI or wet-lease arrangement, meaning Tailwind supplies the aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance. This allows Air Montenegro to add capacity without training its own crews on another aircraft type, but wet leases during peak summer demand can be expensive and typically leave the marketing carrier with less margin per seat.
The delayed Embraer had been scheduled for delivery by the end of June but remained under maintenance in Germany. Air Montenegro purchased another E195 in mid-June that it had previously operated under lease, bringing the number of owned Embraers to three.
The cost and duration of the Tailwind agreement have not been disclosed. The financial effect will depend on the lease rate, aircraft utilisation, fuel consumption and whether the replacement capacity prevents cancellations on high-yield routes. The older Boeing also has higher fuel exposure than the regional aircraft around which Air Montenegro is building its long-term fleet.
Montenegro’s airports handled almost 1.5 million passengers by early July, approximately 17 per cent more than in the comparable period of 2025. Airports of Montenegro expects traffic to rise about 18 per cent for the full year to 3.63 million passengers, with projected net profit of €13.37 million. That demand supports Air Montenegro’s decision to secure replacement capacity, although it also highlights the operational risk of relying on a small fleet during a sharply seasonal traffic peak.
The immediate objective is schedule protection. The longer-term issue is fleet resilience: ownership reduces lease dependence, but concentrating operations around a limited number of aircraft leaves the carrier exposed whenever delivery or maintenance schedules slip.
