Aerolíneas Argentinas, formally Aerolíneas Argentinas S.A., is the state-owned flag carrier of Argentina and the country's largest airline. The airline was created in 1949, from the merger of Aeroposta Argentina (AA), Aviación del Litoral Fluvial Argentino (ALFA), Flota Aérea Mercante Argentina (FAMA), and Zonas Oeste y Norte de Aerolíneas Argentinas (ZONDA), and started operations in December 1950. A consortium led by Iberia took control of the airline in 1990, and Grupo Marsans acquired the company and its subsidiaries in 2001, following a period of severe financial difficulties that put the airline on the brink of closure. The airline was renationalised in late 2008. It has its headquarters in Buenos Aires. The airline joined the SkyTeam alliance in August 2012; the airline's cargo division became a member of SkyTeam Cargo in November 2013.
Aerolíneas Argentinas operates from two hubs, both located in Buenos Aires: Aeroparque Jorge Newbery and Ministro Pistarini International Airport. Its narrow-body fleet, used on domestic and regional routes, consists of the Brazilian-made Embraer 190, as well as the Boeing 737-700, -800 and MAX 8, whereas intercontinental and transoceanic services are flown on the wide-body Airbus A330-200.
History
Early years to privatisation
The history of the airline began in 1929, when Compagnie Générale Aéropostale (Aéropostale) started airmail operations between Buenos Aires and Asunción using Laté-25 equipment, later expanding its network to cities located in Patagonia. Many French pilots (including aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) flew for the company in its beginnings. Argentine personnel replaced the Frenchmen as they gradually withdrew from the airline, and shortly after Aéropostale's Argentine subsidiary Aeroposta Argentina was formed. In 1947, this airline became a mixed-stock company in which the government had a 20% stake and private investors held the balance. As Aeroposta expanded its network southwards and incorporated the Douglas DC-3 into its fleet, another three mixed-stock companies were in operation at the time: ALFA mainly operated flying boats northwards to the Mesopotamia, FAMA operated overseas services with DC-4s as its mainstay equipment, and ZONDA was mainly concerned with operations in the northwest region. These carriers became unprofitable and President Juan Perón had them amalgamated into a single state-owned company on 14 May 1949. The state holding was officially rebranded as Aerolíneas Argentinas-Empresa del Estado. The four companies comprising the state holding ceased independent operations on 31 December 1949.
Aerolíneas Argentinas started operations on its own on 7 December 1950. In February 1950, almost 10 months prior to the start of operations, five new Convairs were already acquired. As early as 1950, the Douglas DC-6 was added to the fleet and was used to launch a weekly Buenos Aires–Rio de Janeiro–Natal–Dakar–Lisbon–Paris–Frankfurt flight in late 1950. Soon afterwards, Douglas DC-4s joined the fleet and services were inaugurated to Santiago, Lima, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and São Paulo. By March 1953, the airline's network was long, flown with DC-3s, DC-4s, DC-6s, Convair-Liner 240s, and Short Sandringhams. The company carried 291,988 passengers in 1954, and 327,808 in 1955. On 8 February 1957, it was reported that Aerolíneas Argentinas had ordered ten F-27 Friendships. The Comet had begun commercial jet services in the 1950s, and the carrier once again set the pace among the South American airlines, when Aerolíneas' president A. Cdre. Juan José Güiraldes persuaded Argentina's President Arturo Frondizi to buy six of them, becoming the first overseas airline in ordering the type. The first of these aircraft departed Hatfield Aerodrome on 2 March 1959; over 18 hours were needed for it to cover a distance of between Hatfield and Buenos Aires. On 7 March, she was christened Las Tres Marías by Frondizi's wife Elena Faggionato at Ezeiza Airport. Comet flights to New York City began in May 1959.
In the early 1960s, the fleet consisted of four Comet 4s, four Convair 240s, 15 DC-3s, six DC-4s, five DC-6s and six Sandringhams, whereas the ten F-27s ordered in 1957 were still pending delivery. The 1960s saw the carrier ordering the Avro 748 turboprop airliner. The aircraft started services on 15 February 1962 between Buenos Aires and Punta del Este. The first flight for the Caravelle in Aerolíneas colours was Buenos Aires–Santiago on 1 April 1962. In April 1965, the carrier had 5,960 employees, and the fleet consisted of three Comet 4s, one Comet 4C, three Caravelles, 12 DC-3s (three of them freighters), six DC-4s, three DC-6s and 12 HS-748s. In 1966, loans granted by the Ex-Im Bank and Boeing permitted the purchase of a number of Boeing 707-320Bs in a deal worth . In November 1969, the carrier entered a pool agreement with Lufthansa covering services between Germany and Argentina.
By March 1970, Aerolíneas Argentinas had a fleet of six Boeing 707s that served routes to Europe and the United States, three Caravelles 6Rs and four Comet 4s that flew regional services, and 12 HS-748s that flew domestically, whereas six Boeing 737-200s were on order. During the decade, the fleet had the arrival of three different aircraft types from Boeing: the 727—the first example entered the fleet in December 1977 on lease from Hughes AirWest and three more were ordered directly from Boeing — the 737, and the 747. In the mid-1970s, the introduction of Fokker F-28 prompted the retirement of the last HS-748s, making the company the first South American airline with an all-jet fleet. Frankfurt, Madrid, and Rome became the first destinations to be served with the new 747s, starting January 1977. Another milestone for the company took place in June 1980, with the first south polar scheduled service, linking Buenos Aires with Hong Kong via Auckland. Late that year, a second-hand Boeing 747SP was acquired from Braniff for .
The airline was assigned by law the monopoly of international operations from Argentina in 1971. This meant no other Argentine airline was able to operate international flights, let alone the already created Austral. The carrier therefore became the flag carrier of the country. The same law also assigned Aerolíneas Argentinas a 50% share of the domestic market.
Following the acquisition of Austral by the Argentine government in 1980, both Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral became government-owned, to the extent that some routes were simultaneously operated, even using similar equipment. However, a state of continuous tension existed over salary differences between both companies that eventually led the Aerolíneas Argentinas' pilots to a three-week-long strike that started on 1 July 1986. During this strike, the government leased pilots from the Argentine Air Force to operate some aircraft. Other companies took advantage of this situation and gained the market share that Aerolíneas Argentinas lost, as domestic routes were operated by Austral, LADE, and LAPA, and the government temporarily authorised foreign carriers to exploit the company's international routes.
Using a Boeing 747-200, the airline operated the first transantarctic commercial flight on 7 June 1980. During and shortly after the Falklands War in 1982, the airline was banned from British airspace. A flight from London-Gatwick to Argentina's capital was once scheduled, but because of the ban, passengers bound to Argentina had to change planes at Madrid-Barajas.Aerolíneas Argentinas History
In March 1985, Aerolíneas Argentinas had 9,822 employees. At this time, the fleet comprised one Boeing 707-320B, one Boeing 707-320C, seven Boeing 727-200s, 10 Boeing 737-200s, two Boeing 737-200Cs, five Boeing 747-200Bs, one Boeing 747SP, two Fokker F28-1000s, and a Fokker F28-4000. The international network radiated from Buenos Aires and served Asunción, Auckland, Bogotá, Cape Town, Caracas, Frankfurt, Guayaquil, Hong Kong, La Paz, Lima, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mexico City, Miami, Montevideo, Montreal, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, São Paulo, Santiago, Porto Alegre, and Zurich. Sydney was first served in 1989, and flights to London resumed in January 1990.
Privatisation: 1990–2008 +Position of the company upon the acquisition by Iberia and when it was sold in 2001Item19912001Assets (without routes, brand, etc., US$ mil.)Annual balance (US$ mil.)18–390Debt (US$ mil.)0900Aircraft (owned/leased)28/11/43Flight simulators32Number of employees10,3726,734 The privatisation of the airline started being considered under the government of Raúl Alfonsín, when SAS was proposed to become a 40% shareholder of the state company. This was firmly resisted by the Peronist opposition. The staff had grown to 10,372 by March 1990. Late this year, a consortium led by Iberia and Austral's owner Cielos del Sur S.A. acquired an 85% stake in Aerolíneas Argentinas for in cash, the same amount to be injected within a 10-month period, and a debt-equity exchange worth billion. Another consortium led by Alitalia, American Airlines, KLM and Varig had earlier pulled out from the process. Paradoxically, one of the first actions taken by the new Peronist government was to privatise the carrier, after airily opposing to the privatisation propositions of its predecessor. The sale of the airline followed the divestiture of the government shareholding in the national telephone company, which also took place in 1990 during the Carlos Menem presidency's privatisation wave, intended to divest the participation of the state in a number of enterprises to reduce the US$40 billion debt to foreign banks by billion. Aimed at favouring the privatisation process, the government absorbed a million debt the company took between 1981 and 1982 for capitalisation purposes. Despite the carrier being regarded as overstaffed and bureaucratic, it was debt-free at that time, having an average profitability of million a year; it actually had million in revenues for the year prior to the privatisation. The privatisation contract, which specified the buyer should pay million in cash and million in external debt bonds, was ratified by the Supreme Court. Furthermore, a clause enabled the buyer to indebt Aerolíneas Argentinas for the buyout process; this was reflected in the airline's 1991 balance, which included debts worth million for its own acquisition. This privatisation process was not ruled as illegal until 2009.
+ Revenue passenger-kilometres, scheduled flights onlyYearMillions195025319553531960592196594819691,61519712,06919753,44119806,92719898,254200011,111200812,107200911,477201013,640201113,649201214,150201317,753 (projected)201618,933201720,390source* ICAO Digest of Statistics for 1950–55* IATA World Air Transport Statistics, 1960–2000