ATC Watcher
Many airlines folded around 1975 struggling mainly due to the fuel crisis and fluctuating holiday markets.
Court Line, Atlantis, Aviacion, Mey Air, Phoenix, Modern AT, Air Viking, and Donaldson all recently had folded or were about to.
In Germany even Bavaria and Germanair were cooperating closely in 1974.
Air Spain's' six DC-8's were all ex Eastern AL.
They were as you say, not that old but frankly inside they really harked back to the dark ages even for 1972.
Really old fashioned with poor lighting, dark colours and a lot of gold green and brown trim LOL.
Seating at 189 was pretty tight.
No APU meant hot and sticky during the turnarounds and delays.
This was at a time when many charter airlines already had or were soon to add new 1-11's, 727's 737's, even Tridents, plus some airlines on the lucrative and competitive Germany and Scandinavian routes by now had the latest wide body Tri-Star's, 747's, A300's, DC-10's, and TEA, Transavia, and Germanair had A300's, all of which had clean new interiors, and air conditioning (APU).
It was fun (The Air Spain DC-8) and very fast to fly on them (when they actually got around to take off) but they were very technically intense and maintenance ''heavy'' with many Tech and (ATC) delays; getting AOG spare parts was always going on.
Once they were in the air they were fine. Always a bit of a lottery whether the aircraft actually turned up as I remember, or if it did turn up was it the one to cover the one before that was delayed 12 hours previously lol. Happy Days.
One of the senior Directors was killed on his way to London to secure more IT contracts; I gather he was on the Iberia DC-9 en-route to LHR that went down in France after colliding with a Spantax Coronado en-route to LGW in 1973.
VistaJet Holidays was Air Spain's main UK charterer demanding both incentives for busy schedules for rock bottom seat prices that the UK charter airlines simply could not give, although BMA's 1-11's did a lot of Vista's work, along with Air Spain.
Horizon and 4S Holidays also took seats from Vista Jet to share flights, mainly from LGW LTN MAN and GLA.
They folded in the main (so did Vista Jet) due to (like Transeuropa and TAE a few years later) being in the back end position of having old, fuel and tech heavy jet fleets that needed renewal but there was no cash around. Couple this with continued rising fuel costs from 1973, and various recessions and Tour Operators wanting airlines with new jets, and losing out to the bulk of the Scandinavian passenger traffic to TFS and LPA during the winter months.
The Air Spain DC-8 story -
The bankruptcy of British Eagle meant for Air Spain that a number of summer charters were taken over from this airline for the 1969 and 1970 seasons.
The 1970 summer season went so well for Air Spain's Britannia's that even larger aircraft were looked for.
The necessary fleet expansion was found in the purchase of used DC-8-21s from Eastern Airlines who had started to replace its 1960 DC-8 series 21 with new DC-8 60 series.
The first of six a/c for AS (JA) was commissioned in January 1971 as EC-BXR (c/n 45422 ex N8601).
With the introduction of the DC-8 at Air Spain, a striking new colour scheme was introduced at the same time, namely a red and yellow colour scheme, inspired by the colours of the Spanish flag.
Only the new Douglas Eights would be provided with this new colour scheme.
With the first DC-8, the holiday flights were further expanded with Zurich and Frankfurt to Palma and Las Palmas.
In addition, the flights to existing UK destinations were expanded, with the DC-8's frequently seen at Gatwick, Manchester, Luton, Birmingham and Glasgow.
At the end of 1971 the second a/c was delivered, registered as EC-BZQ (c/n 45426 ex N8605). With the delivery of EC-CAD (c/n 45423 ex N8602) on April 11, 1972 and EC-CAM (c/n 45427 ex N8606) on June 7, 1972, the number was increased to four DC-8-21s for that year.
Although the Britannia's were put up for sale, no direct new user was found.
The number of Britannia's in passenger use had fallen sharply due to the availability of the many jets on the new and second-hand charter market and only a few freight companies were after them.
After being in storage at Palma for more than a year, both planes were sold to freight carrier IAS (International Aviation Services) who dismantled both a/c in Palma in 1974 for the necessary parts.
With the delivery of the next two DC-8s EC-CDA (c/n 45429 ex N8608) on April 11, 1973 and EC-CDB (c/n 45414 ex N8503) on May 19, 1973, the DC-8 fleet was complete and the last Bristol Britannia was also decommissioned after six years of service and sold to IAS almost immediately.
This Britannia was flown a month later to Biggin Hill where the aircraft was also scrapped for parts.
Competition in the charter market was fierce in the early 1970s and Air Spain were soon to pay the toll.
Given the over capacity, DC-8 EC-BZQ was quickly put back up for sale at Miami in March 1974 and sold that same month to Aerovias Quisqueyana as N8605.
However, 1974 was to be a disaster year for Air Spain.
The low seat price due to the competition in the market and the rising costs for the fuel and maintenance of this early model first series of DC-8's caused great losses.
These losses accumulated so rapidly that Air Spain had to request a deferment of payments to EAL on January 30, 1975 and shortly thereafter again, so in mid-February 1975 Air Spain had to cease operations.
Although talks were immediately started about the takeover of the company by Aviaco, they remained just talks.
Cause: Air Spain's sky-high debt burden. Namely, these amounted to 1000 million Pesatas ($15 million).
Air Spain was declared bankrupt by the spring of 1975, the DC-8 fleet was grounded on Palma from mid-February. Eastern Airlines as the largest creditor of the not yet fully paid off fleet, eventually became the owner of the aircraft again.
Although the aircraft were still flown back to the United States in the spring of 1976, only a single machine found a new employer. Most DC-8s were soon scrapped at Marana.
One of the AS DC-8 21 airframes survives, preserved as a private residence in Tennessee.
A year later, with Air Spain (and Vista Jet) was seen no longer, and many of the Palma and Las Palmas flights were now operated by by Aviaco DC-8's and Spantax CV-990s.
The colourful DC-8's were all named after Spain's sunshine holiday islands, namely Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Lanzarote.