airVeruda A319 100 | I-EIGH

In July 2003, airVeruda was seeking expansion, so they merged with struggling Zadar, Croatia-based Jetluxe. Jetluxe operated a fleet of 4 A319-100s which were all acquired by airVeruda. The Jetluxe Mint Livery, adopted earlier that year, was edited slightly and fit onto all of airVeruda’s new A319s. A month after the merger, the airVeruda CEO was looking to retire. A search committee was put together, and by March 2004, a new CEO was found. The new CEO was a young, ambitious man with lots of potential. He in turn saw the potential in airVeruda, especially with the new hub in Zadar. His father was a former Ski Veruda employee and later became an Air Ski Veruda pilot. By 2003, his father was a very senior check airman for the company and represented airVeruda’s pilot department in advertisements, though he planned to retire in the summer of 2005.

The aircraft above, I-EIGH, is a 4-year-old A319-100, and airVeruda’s oldest after the retirement of the 737-200 and ATR 72-300. It was previously based in Zadar, though in March 2004 it was moved to Milan Malpensa to operate the Milan - Vienna and Milan - Rome routes.

In March 2005, airVeruda was pleased with how the A319s were doing and decided to lease three more. They would supplement others on the Zadar - Mykonos and Milan - Paris routes, as well as start a new route, Zadar - Dublin. With airVeruda’s satisfaction with the Airbus A319, they ultimately decided to lease 2 more in 2009 and buy two of the three aircraft they were leasing from their lessors.

They issued a request for Airbus in 2009 for a more fuel-efficient A319, which was fulfilled in 2017, the year after the airline ordered CS100s from Bombardier instead, though A319neos were still ordered, as the two airliners could complement each other very nicely.