Low cost carriers might start offering service across the oceans, soon. They just won’t be offering it themselves. Say hello to outsourcing!

Richard Ziskind, Omni Air International’s senior director of marketing, has been meeting with low-cost carriers over the past year, proposing to lease aircraft and crews, which he said would allow them to get airborne with far less time, money and effort than if they tried long-haul service on their own.

Ziskind said the aircraft, likely one of the 757s or DC-10s in Omni’s fleet, would fly under the low-cost carrier’s brand and with the livery, seating configuration and product it wanted. [...] So far, Ziskind said he was finding the most interest among Asian and European carriers, whose customers are more accustomed to flying charters than air passengers in North America.

What Ziskind and Omni are proposing is what’s called a “wet lease” — leasing both the equipment and the crew. I guess people make planes “wet.” Extrapolate that to your heart’s content.

This sort of thing already exists at the premium level. Privatair, a small Swiss airline, provides all-business class services to Lufthansa, Swiss, and KLM. So precedent certainly exists.

It’s easy to imagine a configuration whereby one discount carrier links up to another in a different continent. Say, Southwest and EasyJet could hire Omni to offer trans-Atlantic links to their respective focus cities. Throw in interlining and codesharing, and you have a multi-national discount network.

But the way the airline business works, this isn’t the kind of thing that happens overnight. (Remember the jetBlue-Aer Lingus “alliance“?) Still, if Omni’s plans go forward, your local low cost carrier could soon be selling tickets to destinations all over the world.

Now, will they outsource the inflight duties to someone else?…

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