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Aviateca
Founded	1945
Hubs	La Aurora Int'l Airport
Focus cities	Mundo Maya International Airport
Frequent flyer program	Aviapass / Distancia (TACA)
Member lounge	Salones VIP (TACA)
Fleet size	3
Destinations	5
Company slogan	La Línea Aérea de Guatemala / Más alto, más lejos, mejor (The airline of Guatemala / More Higher,further, and better.
Parent company	Guatemalan Government / Synergy Group / HOLDCO (Avianca-TACA)
Headquarters	Guatemala City, Guatemala1
Key people
Website	http://www.taca.com/

Aviateca was the state airline of Guatemala, headquartered in Guatemala City.^[1] It is now a subsidiary of Grupo TACA.

[edit] History

The airline was established on 14 March 1945 as Empresa Guatemalteca de Aviación S. A., which was shortened to Aviateca. It was formed as the successor to Aerovias de Guatemala, which had been founded in 1929. Aviateca started operations in March 1946 and early aircraft operated by the carrier included the Douglas DC-3. In 1961, service to the United States (Miami) was originated with four engined Douglas DC-6 airliners. Convair 340/440 twin engined medium airliners were also acquired to replace the DC-3's on routes in Latin America. Aviateca was a customer for the British Aerospace BAC 1-11 medium twin jet in 1970. It also leased temporarily a Fokker F-28, a Boeing 720 (N421MA) and a Douglas DC-8 in the 1970s. Aviateca acquired two Boeing 727 (TG ALA, TG-AYA) from Eastern Airlines later, which operated for the airline in the 1980s. From 1989 on Aviateca's fleet consisted of several Boeing 737-200 and Boeing 737-300. A full cargo Boeing 737-300 was also operated for a few months.

Aviateca was under government ownership and remained so until 1989 when it joined the TACA organised Airline Alliance of Central America and was privatised. It has now been fully integrated into TACA.

The aircraft were referred to by locals as "las papayas voladoras" (the flying papayas) due to the paint scheme used during the 1970s, in which the underbelly was painted a reddish orange. Later Aviateca switched to blue. From 2006 to 2007 Aviateca had a TACA Airbus A319 aircraft (N479TA)[1] with the TACA-style Aviateca logo on the engines.

[edit] Avianca-TACA

In October 2009 it was announced that TACA would merge with Colombian airline Avianca but they have said that each will maintain their own trademark for now. All as one Avianca-TACA currently operate a fleet of 129 aircrafts, and they have over 100 destinations in the Americas and Europe. Aviateca will also keep their own operations the way they have been doing it for now. That means they will use their own ICAO/IATA cdes.

[edit] Regional

TACA Regional (formerly Inter and operating under Aviateca's IATA code) has two TACA ATR-42 with Guatemalan registration (TG-MYH, TG-RYM)They have also purchased two additional ex Croatia Airlines ATR-42s. [2] [3]

[edit] Inflight Media

Maya Imperial was the Aviateca inflight magazine [4]

[edit] Incidents and accidents

The 1977 Guatemala City air disaster, which killed 28 people.
On August 9, 1995, at approximately 2014 local time (0214 UTC August 10, 1995), a Boeing 737-200 (N125GU) was destroyed when it collided with the side of the San Vicente (Chichontepec) volcano, 15 miles northeast of San Salvador International Airport, San Salvador. The flight, Aviateca Flight 901 (GU901), was on an IFR flight plan from La Aurora International Airport, Guatemala City, Guatemala to Comalapa International Airport, San Salvador, El Salvador. All of the 7 crew members and 58 passengers were fatally injured. Severe weather existed at the time, and the aircraft had deviated from airway G436 to the north to avoid thunderstorms. The aircraft was owned by CIT Leasing Corporation and leased to Aviateca.^[2]^[3]

[edit] Fleet

As of August 2006 the Aviateca fleet included:^[4]

2 ATR 42-300 (under Guatemalan registration)
1 Airbus A319

[edit] External links

[edit] References

^ World Airline Directory. Flight International. March 22-28, 1995. 46.
^ 1995 Crash report
^ Aviation Safety report
^ Flight International, 3-9 October 2006

[0] World Airline Directory. Flight International. March 22-28, 1995. 46.

[1] 1995 Crash report

[2] Aviation Safety report

[3] Flight International, 3-9 October 2006

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