Ecuatoriana de Aviación

Compañía Ecuatoriana de Aviación

Compañia Ecuatoriana de Aviación (CEA) (English: Ecuadorian Aviation Company) was established in May 1957, after a group of American and several Ecuadorian investors decided to set up the airline. At first, 50% of the airline was owned by Americans. Operations started in August 1957. Serving a relatively small country, the airline had a varied fleet that consisted of Curtiss C-46, Douglas DC-4, Douglas DC-6 and one Junkers K 16 aircraft. The Junkers airplane was a rarity, as Junkers airliners were already considered to be classics at the time.

Ecuatoriana began serving both domestic and international destinations immediately after they started flying. International routes proved to be rather long trips: there were jets already in operation when Ecuatoriana began flying (before the Boeing 707 made its first flight), but these were predominantly used by European airlines, and Ecuatoriana's equipment necessitated a stopover in Panama City for their first international route, from Quito to Miami. Likewise, routes from Quito and Guayaquil to Santiago de Chile included stopovers in Lima, Peru.

The airline's livery featured a tailfin logo of alternating blue and white diagonal stripes. The airline operated Lockheed L-188 Electra four-engined turboprop airliners on longer distance scheduled passenger services, including the key Quito-Bogota-Miami route, between March 1967 and March 1975.

Empresa Ecuatoriana de Aviación

American investors pulled out of the company during the early 1970s, prompting the creation of a new company. Hence, Empresa Ecuatoriana de Aviación, a state-owned company that took over the routes, liabilities, and assets of CEA, was established in July 1974, becoming the flag carrier of Ecuador. By this time, the airline had modernized their fleet to include jets like the Boeing 707, and a new, colorful "rainbow" livery attracted airplane spotters at new destinations such as New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Buenos Aires' Ezeiza International Airport. Some of Ecuatoriana's aircraft became "flying canvases" for abstract artwork. These distinctively-painted aircraft were seen as a response to Braniff's Alexander Calder-painted aircraft because, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Braniff was Ecuatoriana's main competitor on many routes, including Miami-Quito/Guayaquil.

In the 1970s, it was a common practice that most South American national airlines were operated by national Air Force departments. Through the Defence Ministry, the Ecuadorian Air Force, in charge of running the airline, bought two refurbished Boeing 707s from Israeli Aircraft Industries in a deal worth US$4,700,000 (equivalent to $22,824,494 in 2016) million. Ecuatoriana also acquired a Douglas DC-10 from Swissair, and they opened non-stop routes to Canada as well. For Ecuatoriana de Aviación, having jet equipment also meant that the long flights with stopovers were not necessary anymore, and non-stop routes were opened all over South America and to other North American cities.

Ecuatoriana also opened flights to such other destinations as Mexico City and Madrid, Spain. The Quito and Guayaquil to Madrid routes in particular proved extremely competitive, as Iberia was a popular airline among travelers who flew those two routes.

During the 1980s, Ecuatoriana de Aviación began conducting business with the European Airbus consortium, buying their Airbus A310 jetliners. Ecuatoriana debuted a pair of Airbus A-310s in the early 1990s.

Collapse

Affected by the general economic crisis in South America during the 1990s, Ecuatoriana encountered deep financial problems. This surprised many airline experts and enthusiasts, as the airline was generally believed to be in good financial condition because Ecuatoriana's management usually kept quiet about the company's finances. The airline stopped flying in 1993 as some of their leased airplanes, including the A-310s, were taken back by the leasing companies since Ecuatoriana was not able to meet the lease payment requirements. Rumors that government officials flew their family members for free on Ecuatoriana hurt the airline's reputation. During the late 1980s, Ecuatoriana had also developed a reputation as being unreliable. Lengthy flight delays and cancellations were commonplace. Faced with these problems, as well as competition from other carriers such as the privately owned Ecuadorian carrier SAETA, American Airlines (which had assumed Eastern Air Lines' Latin America routes in 1990), and Continental Airlines, which began serving Ecuador from its Houston hub in 1991, Ecuatoriana ceased operations.

Brazilian airline VASP soon came to save the airline, buying over 50 percent of it in 1995, and letting the Ecuadorian government retain the other 50 percent. Ecuatoriana received some Boeing 727s, which were repainted in Miami and at Tucson International Airport in Tucson, Arizona, and, by 1996, short domestic and international services were restarted, with a livery that resembled VASP's. A single DC-10, also borrowed from VASP, allowed the airline to reintroduce services to Madrid's Barajas International Airport.

March 2000 (2000-03) saw the airline flying to Buenos Aires, Cancún, Guayaquil, Manaus, Mexico City, Panama City and Santiago using one Airbus A310-300, three Boeing 727-200 Advanced and one McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30. That year, Ecuatoriana was caught up in an overall collapse of Ecuador's economy and once again found itself in financial trouble, and VASP decided to sell its part of the airline, with both Aero Continente and Lan Chile being bidders at that time. Despite claims that Lan Chile was not interested in Ecuatoriana, the Chilean carrier was operating its own aircraft on behalf of Ecuatoriana on the lucrative routes to the USA after Ecuatoriana's aircraft were repossessed by lessors in late 2000. Following the rejection of Aero Continente's bid and the suspension of Ecuatoriana's air operator certificate, Ecuador's civil aviation authority cleared Lan Chile to start up a subsidiary named Lan Ecuador to fly many international routes previously operated by Ecuatoriana.

Lan Chile owned fifty percent of the airline, wet-leasing two Boeing 767's to the company, but in 2004 they sold their part to Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano. By early 2005 LAN had taken over their routes and fleet.

Destinations

Ecuatoriana served the following destinations throughout its history:

Historical Fleets

The airline operated the following equipment all through its history:

Accidents and incidents