Lady Gaga Given a New Plane. A 757, No Less
Live Nation, the concert promotion giant, has given Lady Gaga her own jet. No more flying commercial (or even those low-rent Gulfstreams) for her.
She tweeted “So apparently, LIVE NATION gave us a 757. I just cried n the tarmac. We tried to take a pic but its too big.”
All the headrests feature something that show her name.
But before anyone jumps to conclusions, there’s no way Live Nation just handed over the keys to an $80 million airliner. My guess is that it’s what they call a “wet lease,” which means it’s a rental, complete with crew. Once her current tour is over, the jet will go back to the leasing company.
Still, it’s better than flying commercial, innit?
It's much cheaper to just wet lease this thing than to fly her and her entourage around commercially. Not to mention it leaves when you want to leave, and you can avoid all those pesky crowds and security procedures, just park it over at the FBO (fixed base operator), hop in your limo convoy and off you go!
You had the terminology correct, sorta. A "wet lease" is something an air operator does to provide extra lift temporarily, and you are right, it includes crew etc. A "dry lease" would just be the metal, the airline would crew/insure and maintain it.
This would be more appropriately called an extended "charter" since it's a non-aviation company doing the renting. Don't mind me, I'm anal, and a commercial pilot 🙂
Oops, can't edit. Replace the first sentence up there: "It's much cheaper to just wet lease this thing…" with: "It's much cheaper to just CHARTER this thing…"