What happened to all the Spanish charter airlines ?

[Mooncrest]

There used to be a very significant number of these, probably peaking around the early 1990s. AFAIK, Air Europa is the only survivor of a bunch that included (among others) Aviaco, Spantax, Hispania, LTE, Air Spain, Iberworld, Viva Air and so on. So what went wrong ? Too many airlines chasing too few tour operators ? Insufficient seat-only sales ? Customer dissatisfaction ?
Poor safety records ? Inadequate maintenance ? Bad management ? Culture clashes in the cockpit ? Rising fuel costs ? Recession ? Perhaps the rise of the low-cost airlines finally destroyed them.

Any thoughts ? In the case of Hispania, Thomson Holidays put a lot of business their way (similarly using Airways Cymru for their Bristol and Cardiff offerings), especially where they did not have based Britannia Airways aircraft. I don't know if that was just a convenient arrangement for TH or because they were very satisfied with Hispania and opted to make the most of them.

[c52]

If you fly on holiday with a UK based airline, you get five or more hours extra in your destination than with a foreign-based airline.

For me, it is ok-ish to start my holiday by getting up at 03:00 for an 06:00 departure, and to get home after midnight, but much less good to arrive in my destination after midnight and to get up at 03:00 for an early flight home.

[ATNotts]

Basically vertical integration of businesses and consolidation within the IT sector meant that the UK wound up with 2 or 3 major players, with in house airlines, and clearly the business needs to keep as much of the flying in house.

Wind the clock back some years and you had several small / medium sized holiday companies buying capacity from various carriers. MATO (Midland Air Tour Operators) set up by Doug Ellis flew between Birmingham and the usual Spanish destinations using Spantax among others, and later Carousel Holidays became a fairly large regional player using Aviaco among other carriers. There will have been similar operations from across the UK regions.

[gcal]

No longer needed and the space filled by regular airlines such as Easyjet and Vueling with the likes of Volotea sweeping up behind.
Spanish charter airlines such as Wamos operate out of Spain to the destinations Spanish people use such as America and the Caribbean.

[rog747]

Seriously - the same now as the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. Almost all are now gone.
We have left only now TUI here in the UK (plus all over the EU), Condor in Germany (still going strong after 65 years), Sun Class (Their strong origins were Scanair/Conair/Premiair/Mytravel then TCK Scandinavia), and Novair/Apollo in the Nordics.

UK lost BIA, AE, DA, and Novair in quick succession the markets for niche never to recover. IEA was soon gobbled up. Airways International, Paramount, Amber and Excalibur all did not last very long.
Sabre/Excel/XL RIP 2008
Palmair RIP 2012
Caledonian, Flying Colours and Airworld, plus Airtours International/MyTravel all morphed in 1999 to what collapsed 2 years ago as Thomas Cook RIP 2019
Monarch 2017 RIP
Long before these all went, we of course lost Court Line 1974. Laker 1982 and BCAL 1988.

TUI UK today has Britannia/Orion/Air 2000/FCA and Leisure International as it's forbearers.
TUI UK as it happens are great and a pleasure to fly on.

Today a few small Tour Operators still hang in there - such as Sunvil and Newmarket, but there are no niche UK airlines to pick up their work which now goes to the likes of Enter Air or Titan, with Germania and Small Planet flying for them previously.
Amazingly British Airways and BACF both have used their mainline aircraft and took on many lucrative IT charters for both summer and ski flights from LHR, LGW LCY MAN HUY IOM BFS and Scottish airports. Such was their popularity and a reason to compete with Easyjet (who bought GB Airways in 2008) most of this BA and BACF work is now flown as BA Scheduled flights.

Spain still has Alba Star Airlines, and Evelop (now called Iberojet - a take on defunct Iberworld) but Air Europa/UX formed by Air Europe's ILG in the late 1980's, now owned by IAG, flies mainly schedules nowadays.
UX was the first Spanish private company to operate national scheduled flights (besides the many charter flights which used to be its main business).

Spain was big package holiday charter business first seen in the UK with Spanish airlines flying clients from 1962, with TASSA, Transeuropa, Spantax, TAE, and Air Spain, with Aviaco also flying IT's, although owned by IB. With the exception of Aviaco they all went bust - Spantax held on to 1988.
Followed later by Hispania and Air Europa into the frame -- see below....
Many more came and went in the 80's and 90's - Viva, Nortjet, Universair, CTA Espana Canafrica, L.A.C, Oasis, Iberworld, BCM, Centennial, LTE, Volar, Futura, Hola, South Atlantic, Spanair, and some more.

Hispania HI/XF started inclusive tour flights from/to the Spanish resorts. Created in August 1982. Customers from the UK, Eire, France and Germany comprised most of its business. Airline ordered second generation Boeing 737s in summer 1988, but financial difficulties and a failed takeover by Air Europa forced airline to cease trading in summer 1989.
Air Europa was then the major for a while plus of course joined by Spanair and then Futura.
A new Hispania Airways in 2012 was based at Granada Federico Garcia Lorca Airport and briefly operated services catering to the tourist market. It planned to use A320s and had plans eventually to use A330s and A340s as it expanded into the long-haul holiday market. But only 15 days after launching operations on 06-Dec-2012, with a wet leased MD-83, Hispania suspended operations on 21-Dec-2012. No idea if any original HI/XF employees were involved.

The dearth of most was no doubt the start and then ramp up of the Lo-Co operators, Easyjet, Ryanair, Air Berlin etc etc.
Then we had the many fuel crisis' plus Gulf Wars 1 and 2, a few Recessions, and other factors such as the Internet sales made direct overtaking normal package holiday bookings made via a traditional brochure launch and booked in a travel agency.

Poor safety records ? Inadequate maintenance ? Bad management ? Fuel costs ?
Yes maybe, in the early days of large props and early jets.

[Mooncrest]

In the UK at least, I know that Spantax did a lot of work for Intasun. That might have changed when Air Europa came along with its brand-new 733s. As already stated, Hispania provided significant capacity for Thomson where Britannia Airways was absent and I believe Spanair worked for Thomson too. If the likes of Futura, Universair et al had contracts with any smaller British tour operators, I'm not aware of them.

[wiggy]

c52

In the context of charter/current loco ops I guess there might be some truth in that..

OTOH (Pre-Covid) it used to be relatively easy to get e.g. an early Air France or Iberia flight from Heathrow that could have you sitting in the Sun by the Med mid AM and the same European operators would have services arriving LHR late evening, with the crew/aircraft then night stopping UK and to operate back to base next AM….

[c52]

That's choosing your own scheduled flights, not being pushed around by the tour operator's need to fill each aircraft each time.

If you overnight your Spanish crew in a UK hotel, you are becoming more expensive than a UK operator.

[rog747]

There is still something OK and comforting about booking a traditional package holiday - All in with your flights/bags/transfers/accommodation/choice of self catering or meals.

Today though here in the UK there is really only TUI and it's brands, with the smaller guys like Sunvil, Inghams, Olympic, Gambia Experience, Newmarket, Mark Warner, and a few more...
Apart from TUI, there are almost no Tour Operators now chartering ''whole plane'' series, let alone from Spain!.
Olympic Holidays ceased chartering their own aircraft for Greece and Cyprus a couple of years ago after the collapse of Small Planet and then Germania. They carried on a while using Enter Air and ASL.
Titan, Enter Air, Volotea, BACF, and Smart Wings have all picked up work from niche UK Operators such as Sunvil, Gambia Experience, Barrhead Travel, Newmarket Holidays and Jersey's FlyDirect.

Inghams is owned by Swiss Hotelplan who used to own Belair (was SR's Balair) Hotelplan Suisse then entered into a cooperation with Germania AG using two A319 aircraft to short and medium-haul destinations with ‘HolidayJet – operated by Germania’ titles were started but is now rebranded as CHair AG, who was not affected by the bankruptcy of its German shareholder Germania Flug in February 2019, and continues operations.
Kuoni who owns Voyages Jules Verne, formed Edelweiss Air in 1995, Kuoni is now owned by a Swedish group
Crystal, Hayes & Jarvis, Sovereign, and Citalia are all now TUI brands part of the Travelopia Group.
You then have specialist upmarket people like Abercrombie & Kent, Audley Travel, Cox & Kings, Scott Dunn etc.

Back to Topic of Spain's charter business that was...
Correct, Thomson's took work from Hispania, Spanair and Air Europa. That work had all dwindled considerably after the collapse of AE's Intasun, which was around the same time as BIA and then Dan Air going under, both of whom also flew alot of work for Intasun and Thomsons.
One by one the Majors took all the Minnows paddling in the pool.
IEA started up in 1987 but was gobbled up by Airtours International after summer 1993.
Amber Airways was founded in 1988 to take over the flight services of the recently liquidated Airways International Cymru. Amber Airways mainly flew to the tourist destinations in Greece and Spain, especially Palma de Mallorca Airport. At the end of November 1988 Amber Airways was taken over by Paramount Airways who then collapsed in Nov.1989.
Horizon Midland's own airline Orion was also lost in 1989 to a take over by Britannia.
In the meantime, the previous management of Orion had formed 'TEA UK' in association with TEA of Belgium. Under the takeover agreement, they were not allowed to base any operations at East Midlands Airport so they choose nearby Birmingham Airport although the airline went on to establish a relatively large presence at East Midlands Airport and Gatwick.

During this period in Spain both Spantax and Hispania had folded soon after each other one saw many small Spanish outfits open up as mentioned in my previous post, either flying as themselves or flying sub charters on behalf of Monarch, BIA, Britannia, or Air Europe.
Aviaco who were to take over the ailing Hispania, was eventually taken fully into Iberia and AO's charter flights ceased.
During its heyday, Aviaco ("AO") was well known for operating holiday charter flights primarily from Palma, Ibiza, Tenerife, and Gerona to almost every provincial airport in the UK and Europe, providing uplift for all major tour operators, such as Thomson, Enterprise, Cosmos, Carousel, Pontinental, and ILG. In fact, ILG's combined operations (Intasun, Lancaster, Global and Sol) signed a deal with AO to operate charters from all UK airports not covered by its own Air Europe brand.
Aviaco (Likewise Spantax too) earned itself a bad reputation; it became known for its old aircraft (DC-8 and DC-9's), mediocre service and huge delays. However, the airline gained something of a cult status amongst travellers, who ultimately saw their Aviaco flight as part of the holiday experience (Really !)
Aviaco often sub-chartered aircraft from IBERIA to provide seasonal added capacity to its DC-9 fleet, which saw weekly forays of Iberia Boeing 727s, A300s and even Boeing 747-200s operating charter services on Aviaco's behalf into airports across Europe that had otherwise only handled 737 and DC9 sized aircraft up to that point.

Still, no one in Spain has lasted the course - Today (well pre-covid-19) Thomson's was still buying in 3rd party airline capacity for regional airport work and Air Europa, Norwegian, Volotea, and also Alba Star ES were doing this.
For Summer 2022 any major post Covid-19 recovery for the holiday business is still walking down unknown paths.
Norwegian have gone, Air Europa is now flying with IAG, Volotea do have some charter worked planned for TUI from at least SOU (and for FlyDirect's JER to PMI TFS and AGP)
Alba Star who were once flying for TUI from EXT EDI NCL MME INV and ABZ, have been seen often at all of the UK regionals in previously ''normal'' summers.
They have done plenty of work for Newmarket Holidays and JetsGo Holidays.

Just have to lament the heady old days of the many Spanish charter jets all lined up at Palma

[WHBM]

Today though here in the UK there is really only TUI and it's brands,
Have to disagree with you there, Rog, as Jet2 have really stepped up through the market. Although they offer schedules, and some non-package destinations, if you go with them to the Mediterranean the majority are on their own package holidays. They are also very prominent around the resorts, with badged coaches, reps, etc.

The issue with the Spanish carriers is for a tour operator they could only serve one country, whereas from a mainstream UK departure point the operators wanted to serve Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc, different ones on different days. If you want to allow for consolidation in lower demand shoulders, and flexing accommocation with departure points, it's easy for all departure points, and indeed multiple operators, to schedule say Fuerteventura on a Wednesday. But a Spanish operator finds it a nuisance to handle that on just one day a week, and I believe that was actually an issue for them, lots of positioning between airports for different days. Spantax even used to base their ops HQ in Palma each summer, and move it all over to Tenerife for the winter.

Aviaco lost their market through a particularly incompetent operation that came to the attention of the CAA. They had a Tenerife-Lanzarote-Glasgow DC9 round trip, and having only a half load on the Tenerife to Lanzarote sector, sold it as a day return trip to locals, which in itself might have been outside the terms of their licence. They miscalculated, because although there were about 50 empty seats on the outward short hop, which they had sold, the return load in the evening was almost wholly for Tenerife. Their fix was to deplane everyone at Lanzarote, put them through immigration, then leave about 40 of them behind, whereupon the handling agents went home and they were left wholly stranded, with no flights or ferry to Tenerife, and no accommodation provision or contact. They just happened to have a prominent (possibly CAA) aviation passenger on holiday in the group, who relayed the saga initially to Flight magazine, who printed it on their news pages, then to CAA HQ, and they were just told not to bother applying for licences next season.

I believe the Spanish carrier who did a lot of the early work for Intasun, in their earlier, Manchester-focused, pre-Air Europe days, was actually Transeuropa, with Caravelles, rather than Spantax. Much of Transeuropa's IT business was to Germany, who didn't like night flights, so Harry Goodman at Intasun picked them up for multiple post-midnight departures from Manchester.

[rog747]

Yes sorry I forget really about Jet2 Holidays.
They are an extremely good and large package holiday player now since the TCK collapse, and whilst they were once only the ''darlings'' of the North they have now gone into STN, and this summer managed to start up eventually at BRS. Not sure if they are doing any winter 2021/2022 from there though?
Both BOH and EXT (TUI only) are very quiet this winter coming.

You mention Portugal - they had their own charter airlines - Air Atlantis, Air Columbus and SATA Azores.
SATA is still going.

Greece's charter airlines were all here today and more or less gone tomorrow.
Axon, Cronus, Galaxy, Cretan, Venus, Apollo, Alexandair, Electra/Air Scotland/Greece Airways, Fly Hellas/Viking, Hermes, Macedonian, Sky Wings
et al.
Today Aegean still picks up alot of charter flights as well its growing scheduled European and UK network. Joined now by Sky Express.

Spain's difficult years -

Yes, Transeuorpa were a busy little airline with Caravelles from 1969 and for over 10 years were seen at many of the small UK regionals such as MME, EXT, STN and SEN, as well as LGW BHX and MAN. The 6 Caravelle 10R and 2 11R were used to fly mainly Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca. As tourism grew Transeuropa stopped its freight operations, most of which had been carried out on behalf of Iberia using its Caravelle 11R combi aircraft.
Transeuropa also served the Canary Islands, Morocco and Tunisia, mostly from Germany.
A fall in charter demand in 1979 due to a recession, saw the airline purchased by the Spanish government and took delivery of six Fokker 27 for short haul operations on behalf of Iberia and Aviaco. By this time, a combination of the huge increase in the price of aviation fuel and the Caravelle aircraft becoming obsolete there was a need to modernize the fleet, but owing to a lack of capital by the beginning of 1982 Transeuropa ceased operations and most of its assets were taken over by Aviaco.

Just the year before in 1981, competitor TAE went bust, who were set up in April 1967 having acquired three DC-7C to commence IT operations, followed in 1969 by a new BAC 1-11 402 with an option with BAC for a second, but in early 1970 as a result of financial losses flights were suspended. It was not until three years later that operations were restarted under new management by leasing two Douglas DC-8 30's. Operations were concentrated on inclusive tour flights, mainly from Germany.
In 1975, a Super Caravelle was acquired followed by a second.
Also in 1975, Air Spain had just ceased operations and so TAE leased one further Douglas DC-8-53 to fill in the vacuum in the charter market.
6 DC-8's and 3 Super Caravelles were then in the fleet.
1979/1980 brought an economic recession and the fortunes of TAE began to decline. Another factor that influenced the decline of TAE was increased competition from other new charter operators from Spain and abroad. That, combined with the fact that TAE was also operating old DC-8 and Caravelle aircraft, led to further financial difficulties.
TAE ceased operations in November 1981 and was dissolved in early 1982.

In 1982 just Spantax and Iberia owned Aviaco remained in the charter business - In September of that same year a Spantax DC-10 30 crashed off the runway at Malaga.
German and Scandinavian Tour Operators started to lose faith in both BX and AO.

Hispania was created in August 1982 to start flying in summer 1983 to the UK, Eire, France and Germany with ex Transeuropa Caravelles, joined in 1985 with 737-200's. The airline ordered second generation Boeing 737-300s and new 757-200s from summer 1987, but financial difficulties and a failed takeover bid by Air Europa forced the airline to cease trading in summer 1989.

A late 1980's renaissance in Spain -

Air Europa had already started operations in 1987 with the latest 737-300 and 757-200 from ILG parent Air Europe.
LTE International Airways commenced flights in late 1987 based at Palma with 3 newish 757-200's with RB211 535C engines transferred from LTU parent, LTU Sud.
Even before the closure of Spantax in 1988 had opened up opportunities for more new charter airlines, such as Air Sur/CTA Canafrica Transportes Aereos, LAC Líneas Aéreas Canarias, Andalusair/Oasis, Viva Air and Nortjet.
Spanair was to commence in 1989 with MD80 aircraft.

Both the UK and Spain had many perilous years in the charter market.
There were very few 'Golden Years' - if there was, then they were very soon followed by a Fuel crisis, a weak £/$, and/or a Recession.

[treadigraph]

I can't recall ever seeing TAE at Gatwick, did they operate there?

Air Spain folded just after I started spotting, the only aircraft I ever saw of theirs was the somewhat vandalised Britannia at Biggin!

[rog747]

TAE were not regulars into the UK like Aviaco, Spantax, and Air Spain but I did see both types they flew at Gatwick. TAE mainly served Germany.
The fleet had bright red titles 'Sunshine Liner' which we thought was pretty smart.

Air Spain's DC-8's had probably one of the most colourful livery's of any airline at all times. It was really striking and bright.
I would love to see it again today on something modern.
Sadly one of Air Spain's top bods was killed on the Iberia DC-9 en-route to LHR that went down in France after colliding with a Spantax Coronado en-route to LGW.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/960x564/12321578_10204108890003123_5526366899788312328_n_729716f451a 7f935ecfbd6d8195f4ef016c9669e.jpg

[WHBM]

One of the more extraordinary operations of the Spanish charter carriers into the UK was cargo flights of early season Canary Islands potatoes, which were harvested some weeks before Jersey came into the market, seats would be removed and the boxes tied down on the main deck as well as in the holds. It was a low season supplement to passenger operation. Air Spain did it with their initial Britannias, as well as the DC8, and Transeuropa used their unusual main cargo door-equipped Caravelle 11R Combis. You have to admit that a potatoes-carrying Caravelle is a real oddball.

[treadigraph]

Thanks Rog!

. You have to admit that a potatoes-carrying Caravelle is a real oddball.

A real eye-opener, you'd have to go a long way to mash that... :}

[G-ARZG]

Maybe Frydays only?

[WHBM]

If you would like to see all these liveries again, there is a most surprising and well done display of what presumably are old travel agency models under glass display cabinets in the upper level corridor leading to the departure gates at Palma airport. It used to be somebody's private collection, it includes just about every Spanish carrier ever, including these charter operators, plus a range of ones from overseas (some of whom, like Braniff, never served Spain). Saw it one time going through, next time I was ready for it and photo'd them all.

Haven't been through for a few years now. Is it still there ?
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_8554_33be14a90c3023bbb75fe70fe8184b08573cc632.jpg

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_8556_1f12040a1f1da8120d32bf67dea0b18d0a61b8b4.jpg

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_8558_e426856aa9df927faf08ba292664975c6d7b2d08.jpg

[Mooncrest]

It always amused me, leafing through the holiday brochures years ago, seeing which airlines were doing what routes. Invariably the likes of Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester had their flights operated by the in-house airline - Britannia, Air Europe, Orion and so on. The lesser airports such as Leeds Bradford and Aberdeen got the likes of Spanair and Spantax. I know this was because the UK airlines didn't always have bases at these airports so had to make do with the Spanairs of the world. I can't speak from experience but I wonder if their passengers were getting a raw deal compared with, say, the Manchester passengers ? As an aircraft dispatcher a few years ago, I encountered several stroppy Spanish cabin crew and was happy not to be flying with them. Latin spirit and all that.

[WHBM]

I don't think that was particularly the case, because the carrier could always do a W with their own airline, though that has its own issues for crewing. More likely was that the minor points were often shared between even major operators (apart I think from Thomson, who never planned to share with anyone), so the carrier selected might be done by someone different. Operators might get a planeload for themself from Gatwick, but not from say Liverpool, so it would be shared.

Given the complete absence of available timetables for the charter operators, I used to raid the travel agencies after Christmas for the brochures, and work out the various aircraft programmes from there. Anyone else do the same ? Oh, for Excel :) . It was the minor operators who got the Spanish etc carriers into major points like Gatwick, so those would still come as something of a surprise. I can recall just one rotation, one year only, forget to where, being from this oddball carrier TAE, who I looked up in the Flight magazine World Airline Survey.

[PAXboy]

The IT companies have been replaced by the new integrators - online. No need for advertising them but there are some now well known names that are stitching the components together and selling them as a package. Instead of going into the shop in the shopping centre, or getting their catalogue - you shop online. That keeps their costs low and allows them to alter prices by the hour. The old IT companies had to nail their prices up at the start of the season. No one works that far out now.

[Mooncrest]

Of course, the Spanish charter airlines didn't only have the UK in which to ply their trade. Northern Europe, Scandinavia and the Republic of Ireland were all available to them too. As I recall, those Eastern Bloc countries that had a significant tourism industry - Bulgaria , Romania and Yugoslavia - kept the flights firmly in house. To begin with in Bulgaria, that meant the national airline but then came VIA and Balkan Holidays Air. Tarom and Romavia did the Constanta stuff in Romania but Yugoslavia had a choice of JAT, Adria and Aviogenex. None of these three still exist ☹. To some extent, Adria and Aviogenex were little more than the flight departments of the government agencies which controlled them which could have meant their demise at the same time as the Yugoslav Republic in 1991. As we know, Adria managed to reinvent itself as the Slovene airline but Aviogenex was less fortunate .

[WHBM]

The longest major flow in Europe is the holiday trade between Scandinavia and The Canaries. At about a 6 hour flight time it fits nicely into two rotations one day, one rotation the next. Long beyond the capabilities of twin-engined aircraft, it is what was behind Spantax building up their fleet of Convair 990s, and the DC8s of some other Spanish carriers (earlier they had favoured DC7s). Rather like Canadians to the Caribbean, the peak season for Scandinavia to Canaries is in the winter (in the summer Scandinavians tend to go to their cabin by the lake) so the aircraft were more readily available for the UK, with the opposite seasonality.

[LGWAlan]

Wasnt just the smaller UK airports that got the likes of Spanair. I remember the weekly "invasion" of up to 12 Spanair MD80 series aircraft on Saturday nights alongside those of Lineas Aereas Canarias and the 737s and 757s of Air Europa. Some of these even operated W patterns - with one memorable one being a PMI-MAN-IBZ-MAN-PMI routing by UX.

[rog747]

Indeed - reminds me of one of our Air Spain DC-8 rotations
Sat afternoon was ALC-LTN (STD LTN 18.00) -ALC-LTN (STD LTN 00.40) -MAN-BCN-MAN-LTN then back on SUN morning was LTN (STD LTN 09.30) -IBZ-LTN-PMI - was always horribly delayed

[ATNotts]

Those Air Spain DC8-21s were old and knackered when they got them; and flogging them like that was always going to be a recipe for disaster. If I recall correctly their Britannia operation wasn't much more reliable.

[GBYAJ]

My first flight was NCL-PMI on a Transeuropa caravelle in ‘79. Only 4 at the time so don’t remember much except one photograph to prove I was on it and a meal tray (with the TransEuropa “T” on it) that we had for years afterwards as it was one of the over night flights mentioned above (arrive U.K. around 11 pm depart around midnight) so I’d fallen asleep but my parents kept the meal for me.

Aviaco had a very bad reputation for service and I remember a friend flying NCL- TFS saying they never saw the crew for the whole flight as they sat behind the curtain smoking!

I kept a 1987 Flight International edition that ran an article titled “Spanish Charters go upmarket” and explained how the Spanish government had insisted that a certain % of tourists arrived on Spanish airlines (or something to that effect) which had previously been the very poor Aviaco and Spantax. The new breed of Air Europa, Hispania and CTA were setting out to change the reputation of Spanish carriers that Aviaco and Spantax had created.

I never experienced them at their worst but I only flew on one another Spanish airline Futura in 1997. Service wasn’t quiet as good as U.K. Carrier’s at the time but was ok. Perhaps though we got what we paid for a cheap teletext holiday ! It was quite an eclectic flight out, 737-400 SE-DRR with Nordic European titles, Irish flight crew and Spanish cabin crew.

[ATC Watcher]

ATNotts

Not quite, their 6 DC8-20s were all built from 1960, delivered from 1971 -73 so only 10-13 years old when they got them most were ex United , so well maintained and all continued to fly until the 80s with other airlines. They were never involved in serious incidents or accidents unlike many of their competitors at the time . The 20 series was advanced for its time used already the powerful JT4A which unfortunately used lots of fuel and smoked like hell... A very nice aircraft . The reason it folded was not clear , money shortage more likely , but it was not safety or poor maintenance of their fleet.

[rog747]

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.

[WHBM]

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. Some carried on. I came through Palma in summer 1985, and was surprised to find Italian charter carrier Altair had sent three Caravelles into there from various northern Italian cities - I was also surprised overall to find Italians coming on package holidays to Majorca. They were later Caravelle 10Bs, with P&W JT8D engines, the onetime Finnair fleet.

Moments later we took off from what is now the western runway. The newer Palma eastern runway appeared to have been completed, but was not in use, and was being used for parking the whole of the onetime Spantax Convair 990 fleet, lined up in echelon along it, a distant sight as our 737 became airborne. They were there for years, most were scrapped in the early 1990s, but there's still one left there, sort-of preserved, but in decidedly weatherbeaten condition, Spantax livery under the dirt, in a remote area between the runways. Do look out for it if passing through. Here it is on Google Earth, a nice reminder of those old Spanish charter operators.

palma airport - Google Maps (https://www.google.com/maps/@39.5582925,2.7477816,83m/data=!3m1!1e3)

Shame it's in such a weather-streaked condition, The owners should have remembered George Bernard Shaw (making a rare appearence in a post here) and his expression : "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane".

Sorry ...

[ATC Watcher]

@rog747 : many thanks for you detailed story ! What a memory ! , yes they were ex Eastern , not United, I mixed the 2 up,
Would you have the similar story for Spantax.? I flew often in the jumpseat of the BX CV990s for many years when commuting to LPA and we had long discussions during the long afternoon flights with the newspaper taped on the windscreen to avoid the sun..
Same with TAE, "Trabajos" ,DC8s they were even more cowboy ops than BX but were far more lucky in terms of safety. I always wanted to write down some of the funny anecdotes I had with Spantax , including a belly landing in Cologne, but never went to it. The last accident they had ( the DC10 ) just before they folded left also a bad taste to it all ( Although the acceptance flight when they got it was a good story in itself !)

@WHBM : yes the CV990 belongs now to an association that want to restore it ( and repaint it) for static display somewhere more public.
https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com/news/local/2019/06/19/55791/restoring-the-coronado.html
Unfortunately Covid put a temporary stop to it , but when tourists and money come back to the island I am sure they will continue..

[DH106]

I always wanted to write down some of the funny anecdotes I had with Spantax , including a belly landing in Cologne,....

That must have been EC-CNG, at Cologne 04/04/1978. Were you on that jumpseat ? :)

[ATC Watcher]

No ,but flew with one of the crew afterwards heard the story , zero flaps landing , high workload , killed the horn and they forgot the gear... landed as smooth as a baby . Pax did not complain .
Later they just jacked it up , managed to lower the gear , Swissair guys came to fix a few things on the engines and they flew it to Woensdrecht (NL) for repairing the " scratches "on the belly .It continued to fly for a few years afterwards until the airline folded.
Those were the days .
From your pseudo , are you by chance an ex Dan Air . ? if yes I am sure we exchanged a | "Chug-a-lug" together....

[WHBM]

Swissair indeed retained the engineering skills on the Cv990 well after they disposed of their own fleet (the last of which actually went to Spantax), and did all their major checks at Zurich. The Spantax aircraft lost at Stockholm had a prior major engine failure and was taking off on a three-engine ferry to Zurich for an engine change.

[DH106]

ATC Watcher

No, sadly not - just a Comet (and Cv990!) fan :)

[WHBM]

Isn't there any Aircraft Maintenance Organisation at Palma, who could at least contribute by giving it a demineralised water wash once a year or so .. ?.