SEDTA
| SEDTA | |
|---|---|
| IATA code : | (without) |
| ICAO code : | (without) |
| Call sign : | |
| Founding: | 1938 |
| Operation stopped: | October 22, 1941 |
| Seat: | |
| Company form: | Corporation |
| Fleet size: | |
| Aims: | National and international |
| ceased operations on October 22, 1941 . The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
The Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Transportes Aereos (SEDTA) was an airline in Ecuador that was founded and operated by Deutsche Lufthansa .
Company history
Ecuador was chosen as the third Pacific outpost of Deutsche Lufthansa (after Chile and Peru ). SEDTA was founded there in 1937 by the German entrepreneur and aviation pioneer Fritz Hammer, in which Lufthansa wanted to participate. The accidental death of Hammer, who had been brought forward by Lufthansa because of his good knowledge of the South American conditions at the time of this establishment, delayed the whole matter. The fact that the air transport license had not yet been awarded did not prevent Lufthansa from carrying out provisional air transport between Quito and Guayaquil as early as July 1938 , for which a Ju 52 / 3m already made available by Lufthansa was used.
The license was then granted to SEDTA in October. This was the prerequisite for Lufthansa to participate in SEDTA. “ Lufthansa took over 620,000 Sucre of the 700,000 Sucre share capital, 300,000 Sucre in its own name, while 320,000 Sucre were subscribed by six trustees on behalf of Lufthansa. The remaining Sucre 80,000 of the share capital was raised by Ecuadorians ”. Lufthansa chose this form because as a foreign company it was not allowed to acquire a majority in an Ecuadorian company. The six straw men then provided an actual majority.
In order to connect the SEDTA to the rest of the Lufthansa service, Lufthansa Peru applied for a permit to fly into Ecuador, while the SEDTA itself applied to be allowed to start traffic to Colombia . These plans were related to the fact that Lufthansa was striving to acquire a stake in the Colombian SCADTA . This would have made the entire west coast of South America the Lufthansa traffic area and Central America would have come within reach. The US countermeasures immediately initiated in Colombia made the plans of the SEDTA irrelevant, so that this company could not cross the borders of Ecuador. In 1940 five routes were operated, which started from Quito and Guayaquil. Eleven route services took place weekly, the length of the network was 1525 km.
In Ecuador, too, the SEDTA's flight operations had difficulties after the start of the war. The alarm bells began to ring in Washington when the SEDTA applied for a route to the Galapagos Islands in May 1940 . The US official statement on this issue was that this would give German air traffic a base for attack on the Panama Canal . The truth was much more explosive: the USAAF had conducted a secret reconnaissance flight to the islands on May 9, 1940 with the aim of finding a suitable location for the establishment of a military airfield. After some negotiations with the Ecuadorian government, the airfield was built that same year. German presence was of course undesirable. The US would have preferred the Bolivian solution, a nationalization of society, but was rejected by the Ecuadorian side for lack of its own financial resources. The USA had no choice but to set up air traffic in parallel with SEDTA. So that was Panagra commissioned in November 1940th The aim was to get SEDTA into economic difficulties. This initially continued the traffic with the support of the Syndicato Condor until the US government intervened. After the American government threatened to stop all oil deliveries to Ecuador as long as the SEDTA offered its air services, the Ecuadorian government demanded on August 27, 1941 that the company be shut down. On September 4, 1941, the SEDTA had to cede its two Ju 52 / 3m, one of which was owned, while the other was chartered by the SAC , to the Ecuadorian government. After Lufthansa first tried to sell the company's material to the state in order to save at least part of the investments, the government demanded the liquidation of the company on October 22, 1941. As compensation, however, compensation should be paid to the SEDTA. However, this did not take place until the end of the war.
fleet
The SEDTA used a Ju W-34 and five Ju 52 / 3m , two of which were chartered by Syndicato Condor in 1941. One of these two, presumably PP-CBA, received the Peruvian approval HC-SAE. The HC-SAB crashed on December 10, 1938, killing one crew member.
See also
literature
- Andreas Acktun: Air traffic in Germany and Great Britain. Business enterprises in the field of tension between state and corporate interests , Marburg 2006
Individual evidence
- ↑ F.-W. Hammer and obituaries: Fritz-W. Hammer, co-pilot Butscher, mechanic Weiß and Captain Aguirre crashed on March 5, 1938 with the Ju W-34 D-OJIL provided by Lufthansa in Ecuador
- ↑ Quarterly Report III / 38 , p. 5, BA Berlin, inventory "Deutsche Bank"
- ↑ Quarterly Report IV / 38 , p. 15, BA Berlin, inventory "Deutsche Bank"
- ↑ Quarterly Report III / 39 , p. 5, BA Berlin, "Deutsche Bank" inventory
- ^ Davies, REG: The World's Airlines , London 1964, p. 160
- ↑ Boniface, Patrick: Boeing's Forgotten Monster. XB-15. A Giant in Search of a Cause , in: Air Enthusiast 79, pp. 64–67, here: pp. 66 f.
- ↑ Quarterly Report III / 4 1, p. 2 f., BA Berlin, inventory “Deutsche Bank”
