Air Madrid
| Air Madrid | |
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| IATA code : | NM |
| ICAO code : | DRD |
| Call sign : | ALADA AIR |
| Founding: | 2003 |
| Operation stopped: | 2006 |
| Seat: |
Madrid , Spain
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| Turnstile : | |
| Home airport : | Madrid-Barajas |
| Fleet size: | 8th |
| Aims: | National and international |
| Website: | www.airmadrid.com |
| Air Madrid ceased operations in 2006. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Air Madrid Líneas Aéreas SA was a Spanish airline based in Madrid and based at Madrid-Barajas Airport .
history
Air Madrid was founded in December 2003 by a group of companies and private individuals and started flight operations in May of the following year with two brand new Airbus A330-200s .
At the start of operations, the Colombian government had problems with traffic rights to Colombia, and so Air Madrid was initially only able to fly to Cartagena (CTG) and not to Bogotá (BOG) as planned .
Also in 2004, Optursa Management Ltd. acquired 100% of the shares. This tourism company, minority owner was the English My Travel, was u. a. owned by 37 hotels, various travel agencies and Alada Tours (Alada was then also the callsign of Air Madrid).
Over time, Air Madrid also wanted to expand continental traffic in order to be able to offer feeder flights. Therefore, she flew two Airbus A319-100s and negotiated a lease for five Airbus A320-200s .
According to a survey by the Spanish consumer association Organización de Consumidores y Usuarios (OCU) of 8,600 travelers from all over Europe, the airline was classified in April 2006 as the one with the most delays. In the global indicator “customer satisfaction”, it came 110th out of 110 listed airlines.
At the beginning of 2006 Air Madrid started the route from Madrid to Buenos Aires (EZE) via Fortaleza (FOR). In addition, a third Airbus A321 and two leased Airbus A319-100s were taken over, enabling the feeder connections in Spain and Europe to be further expanded. The only Airbus A340 was taken over in May.
The serious problems for Air Madrid began in November 2006 when an Airbus A310 had to remain on the ground due to outstanding payments. A little later, the Airbus A340 was grounded for the same reason. On December 15, 2006, Air Madrid announced the immediate cessation of operations, causing around 120,000 passengers to fear for their return flight. The Spanish government then organized charter planes to fly the stranded passengers (known as strapax in technical jargon) home.
After flight operations ceased, there were still 300,000 tickets sold that had not yet been used. According to a press release by the company, the Spanish Ministry of Transport is solely to blame for the cessation of operations, which has been threatening a license withdrawal for days. Air Madrid had previously been asked by the Spanish Ministry of Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority under threat of possible license withdrawal to explain and remedy the accumulated, sometimes three-day delays. However, the company did not mention this in its press release.
In order to avoid the impending license withdrawal, the company had announced the day before that it would forego targets and expand the aircraft fleet. The airline's decision was made before the ministry had made a final statement. The Spanish Ministry of Transport finally revoked the company's operating license on December 18, 2006. Air Madrid filed for bankruptcy on December 22, 2006 .
On December 26, 2006, LTU announced that it was openly considering joining Air Madrid. On December 29, the talks were initially declared to have failed. Finally, Air Comet (then still called Air Plus Comet ) took over 52% of the employees and most of Air Madrid's routes to Latin America. For a surcharge of 200 euros, existing tickets for Air Madrid could be made valid for corresponding Air Comet flights. For its part, Air Comet went bankrupt in 2009.
aims
The airline mainly offered cheap scheduled flights to South and Central America from Madrid and Barcelona . Other destinations were also the Balearic Islands , the Canaries and destinations in Europe.
The flight destinations of Air Madrid, whereby some destinations were only briefly in the flight plan:
from Madrid to:
- Barcelona
- Bogotá
- Bucharest (Baneasa)
- Buenos Aires (partly with a stopover in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (TFS))
- Cancun
- Caracas (partly with a stopover in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (TFS))
- Cartagena
- Fortaleza
- Frankfurt am Main
- Guayaquil
- Ibiza
- Lima
- Lisbon
- London (Gatwick)
- Mahon (Menorca)
- Málaga
- Managua
- Mexico city
- Milan (Malpensa)
- Nice
- Palma de Mallorca
- Panama City
- Paris (CDG)
- Porlamar
- Punta Cana
- Puerto Plata
- Quito
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rome
- San José (Costa Rica)
- Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia)
- Santa Cruz de Tenerife (TFS)
- Santo Domingo
- Santiago de Chile
- São Paulo
- Tel Aviv
- Toulouse
- Varadero
from Barcelona to:
- Bogotá
- Bucharest (Baneasa)
- Buenos Aires (partly with a stopover in Fortaleza or earlier also in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria)
- Cartagena
- Fortaleza
- Guayaquil
- Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
- Mahon (Menorca)
- Milan (Malpensa)
- Nice
- Quito
- Santa Cruz de Tenerife (TFS)
- Santiago de Chile
fleet
At the time of cessation of flight operations, Air Madrid's fleet consisted of eight aircraft with an average age of 8.4 years:
- 1 Airbus A310-300 (was taken over by Air Transat ) (D-AIDH)
- 2 Airbus A319-100 (were taken over by Sichuan Airlines ) (EC-JQT and EC-JQU)
- 3 Airbus A330-200 (were taken over by Air Comet and Novair (SE-ABG))
- 1 Airbus A330-300 ( taken over by Brussels Airlines ) (EC-JMF)
- 1 Airbus A340-300 (EC-JIS)
Air Madrid also repeatedly leased other aircraft such as B. Boeing 737-400 from Futura .
See also
literature
- Jetstream Magazine
- OAG Official Airlines Guide
Web links
- Former Air Madrid website (no longer available in the meantime)
- Former website of the bankruptcy administration of Air Madrid (meanwhile no longer available)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Los pasajeros suspenden a las aerolíneas españolas , El Mundo of April 18, 2006. The summary of the OCU study can be found here on the El Mundo website as a PDF document.
- ^ Die Zeit : zeit.de - LTU is considering a stake in Air Madrid ( Memento from January 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) December 26, 2006.
- ↑ Airliners.de: airliners.de - Talks about a takeover of Air Madrid failed December 29, 2006.
- ↑ / various OAG Official Airlines Guide
- ↑ airfleets.net - Air Madrid fleet age
