CityJet: The Irish Airline That Doesn't Sell Tickets to Passengers

History and positioning

Founded in 1992, it built its early identity on scheduled flights from London City, also taking over the London City-Amsterdam routes from VLM and KLM, before gradually moving away from selling tickets under its own brand.

The business model

Today it operates almost entirely as a wet lease provider, supplying complete aircraft and crews to larger carriers such as SAS, Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines: passengers book and board under the brand of those airlines, even though the aircraft and the crew operating the flight belong to CityJet.

The fleet

Built around Bombardier CRJ900 and CRJ1000 regional jets, a fleet that has been scaled down over time from an earlier, larger lineup that also included the Avro RJ85 and the Sukhoi Superjet.

Recent history

It went through a third court-supervised restructuring in Ireland (examinership), concluded in October 2025, emerging under new ownership and focused on this wet lease model.

There is really no direct passenger profile: anyone flying on a CityJet aircraft booked it through SAS, Lufthansa or Brussels Airlines, often without knowing it. There is no point searching for "CityJet" fares directly, because they generally don't exist. Practical tip: if your SAS, Lufthansa or Brussels Airlines ticket shows a CRJ900 or CRJ1000, the flight is probably operated by a CityJet crew: check the "operating carrier" field instead of assuming it matches the selling airline.