Aegean Airlines (A3, Athens) has increased its stake in Animawings (A2, Bucharest Henri Coanda) from 25% to 51% for a total investment of EUR1.3 million euros (USD1.5 million).

The remainder of the Romanian leisure specialist's shares remain owned by the Memento Group, a Romanian-owned travel holding headquartered in the Netherlands. Animawings will remain a sister company of Memento's tour operator Christian Tour but will be co-managed by Aegean Airlines going forward. The Greek parent will mainly handle operations, while Memento Group will continue to run the commercial side of the business. Christian Tour and the Greek carrier have an extensive history of charter cooperation.

"Animawings is ready to pass in the second phase of growth, and I am very confident that expanding the partnership with Aegean will bring many benefits in the sense of imposing our company as a top player in the local and regional aviation market. Aegean's involvement will continue and increase in the next period, bringing support and know-how to all Animawings departments through specialists with extensive experience in various aviation-specific processes and systems," President of Memento Group Christian Pandel said.

Animawings was incorporated in 2019. Aegean acquired its minority 25% stake in 2020, ahead of the airline's launch in July 2020. It currently operates a single A320-200 sourced from Aegean and will increase its fleet to three units of the type - all via its Greek parent - by the summer 2022 season.

The airline will continue to focus on serving the Romanian market with a mix of charter and scheduled leisure services, many of them to Greece. It will announce its full schedule for the next year by mid-November 2021.

The Romanian airline ended its planned summer leisure charter programme on September 22 and currently operates a limited number of ad-hoc charters, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows.

Aegean Airlines itself operates thirty-two A320s, as well as a single A319-100, five A320-200Ns, ten A321-200s, and four A321-200NX, the ch-aviation fleets module shows.