Aviaco

Aviaco (short for Aviación y Comercio, S.A.) was a Spanish airline. It was started on 18 February 1948^[1], after a new law was passed that ended the monopoly the airline Iberia had held over Spanish air travel until then. Aviaco was later nationalized and became part of Iberia, before Iberia fully absorbed it in 1999.^[2]

The company was founded on 18 February 1948, with its head office at No. 1 Plaza Venezuela in Bilbao, and starting money of 100 million pesetas. Its first president, Elías Ugartechea Isusi, had held permits since December 1946 to run irregular domestic flights, and he passed these over to the new company. Aviaco was also co-founded by Julio Alegría Caamaño, a pilot and businessman from Burgos who lived in Bilbao. Besides Aviaco, he was linked to several other aviation companies, such as TAE, ALPA, and TAVASA.^[3]

On 1 May 1948, Aviaco got its first planes, three Bristol 170 Freighter Mk 21 aircraft, and began flying from Bilbao to Madrid and Barcelona. In 1949, Aviaco set up its main base at Madrid-Barajas Airport, started flying to the Canary Islands, Alicante, and Badajoz, and joined IATA, the international airline association. In 1950, José Pazó Montes became president. The airline added 10 Sud-Est SE.161 Languedoc planes and started new routes: Madrid–Seville–Jerez, Madrid–Lugo–Santiago de Compostela, Madrid–Alicante–Oran, and Barcelona–Brussels–Amsterdam. In 1951, Aviaco began flying routes along Spain's northern coast, first connecting Madrid–Lugo–Santiago de Compostela–Bilbao–Zaragoza–Barcelona, and also created routes between Bilbao and Bordeaux, and Madrid and Vitoria.^[4]

During the 1950s, Aviaco added routes from Madrid to newly built airports in Granada, San Sebastián, Asturias, and Santander. To handle all these new routes, the airline added de Havilland DH.114 Heron, Fokker F-27, and Convair 440 Metropolitan planes to its fleet. In this way, Aviaco played a key role in connecting Spain's newly built airports by air.

In 1960, Aviaco flew a Sud Aviation Caravelle jet together with the Belgian airline Sabena, making it the first Spanish airline to fly jet planes. In 1971, Tomás Maestre Aznar became president of Aviaco, while Joaquín Abril Martorell became managing director. In 1973, the Instituto Nacional de Industria bought 67% of the company and named Fernando Liñán as president. By 1975, Aviaco had 27 planes: 6 DC-8s, 4 Caravelles, 12 DC-9s, and 5 Fokker F-27s. In 1976, Manuel Ortiz became president. He was replaced on 7 November 1978 by Felipe Cons, who was in turn replaced in 1980 by Lorenzo Olarte, and then in 1982 by Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros.

In May 1990, a Aviaco DC-9 plane, registration EC-CLE, was involved in one of the most serious air accidents in Spain, during a difficult landing at Vigo Airport. This became known as the Peinador accident. There were 62 people injured, 3 of them seriously, but no one died.^[5]

In the late 1990s, Iberia reorganized its group of companies as it prepared to become a private company. Starting in 1997, Aviaco began flying joint flights with Iberia, sharing the flight code IB/AO. After a series of staff strikes in early 1999, followed by talks between the company and the unions, Aviaco disappeared as a brand name on 1 September 1999, when all its planes were repainted in Iberia's colors^[6]. At the time it disappeared, the company was led by Ángel Mullor, had 1,500 employees, including 330 pilots, and had made a profit of 3.6 billion pesetas in 1998.

1. ↑ PPLL (2008-02-19). "Con tarjeta de embarque". El Correo (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-08-12.
2. ↑ Tizon, Alvaro (1988-06-15). "Iberia negociará con el Instituto Nacional de Industria la compra del 65% de Aviaco". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
3. ↑ garcía, josu (2018-02-17). "Cuando Bilbao reinó en los cielos". El Correo (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-08-12.
4. ↑ "Pontevedra fue la única ciudad sin aeropuerto de España que tuvo una subdelegación aérea desde 1955 y trasladaba a los pasajeros en coche desde la Peregrina a Peinador". Faro de Vigo (in Spanish). 2013-07-14. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
5. ↑ "El siniestro del 94 en Peinador, calificado como uno de los 11 relevantes de España". La Voz de Galicia (in Spanish). 2020-03-06. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
6. ↑ País, El (1999-08-31). "Los accionistas de Aviaco aprueban hoy la integración en Iberia". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2026-08-12.