Air Madrid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Air Madrid
IATA NM	ICAO DRD	Callsign ALADA AIR
Founded		2003
Hubs		Madrid Barajas International Airport
Fleet size		10
Destinations		All Flights Cancelled Until New Advice
Parent company		Grupo Marsans
Headquarters		Madrid, Spain
Key people		José Luis Carrillo, President
Website: http://www.airmadrid.com

Image:Airbus A319-132 - Airadrid - EC-JQU - LEMD.jpg

Air Madrid Airbus A319-132

Air Madrid Líneas Aéreas S.A. is a private airline based in Madrid in Spain operating services to Spain, Tenerife, Mexico, South and Central America, Europe and Israel. It suspended its operations on December 15, 2006, leaving more than 330,000 passengers stranded in Latin America and Spain. Air Plus Comet is now taking over the Latin American routes.

1 History
- 1.1 Air Madrid suspended from IATA Operations - 15 December 2006
2 Destinations
3 Fleet
4 External links
5 References

[edit] History

The airline was established in 2003 and in May 2004 started operations with the delivery of two Airbus A330-200 aircraft. It is owned by Celuisma (20%), Hotusa (20%), Herpil (12.5%), Catalonia Hoteles (10%), Quo Viajes (10%), Viajes Eroski (10%) and others. Air Madrid planned to start a new short-haul scheduled arm to provide feeder traffic to its long-haul flights from Madrid. It also had talks to lease five Airbus A320 aircraft for services to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Milan and Paris ^[1].

[edit] Air Madrid suspended from IATA Operations - 15 December 2006

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that Air Madrid was suspended from IATA operations worldwide on December 15, 2006 following confirmation that the airline had ceased operations. It has been a disaster for the people that bought tickets.

In September 2006 the company had started experiencing longer than usual delays and several cancellations, particularly on their routes from Madrid, eg flights between Buenos Aires and Madrid usually departed with an average 14 hours delay.^{[citation needed]} As reported in El País, most of these delays were triggered by Spanish aviation authorities for safety reasons, refusing to allow certain aircraft to operate due to poor maintenance. After an investigation, the Dirección General de Aviación Civil recommended limiting Air Madrid's flights or altogether suspending their licence ^[2]. Additionally, sources at Toluca, Mexico have stated that Air Madrid’s twice weekly flights regularly arrive and depart several hours late. Due to those delays, Air Madrid had to decide between keeping its certificate or cancelling their flights to Mexico City - Toluca Airport and Milan, and decided cancelling their flights to Toluca and Milan.^{[citation needed]}

On December 16, 2006 Air Madrid suspended all flights (leaving thousands of people stranded) as a consequence of the Spanish government investigation of its operations and due to constant customer's claims of poor service, that resulted in the cancellation of its permit to operate. It is unknown if operations will resume.^{[citation needed]}

Air Madrid, blaming the Spanish government, said in a statement that it was giving a list of ticket-holders to the civil aviation authority, which falls under the Development Ministry, for it to “adopt whatever measures it might deem appropriate to compensate them for the damage its conduct has caused.” Air Madrid didn't show any intention of refunding tickets and as expected, the carrier’s press office said it had no information on this. On December 19, 2006 the Spanish Government sent an Iberia Boeing 747-200 through Panama City, Panama (Tocumen International Airport) to pick up several of the passengers that were stranded in Latin America. According to some pilots, the majority of Air Madrid planes had serious maintenance problems.^{[citation needed]}

Air Plus Comet has signed a deal with the Spanish government to take over the Latin American routes formerly operated by Air Madrid. The airline will take on 53% of the Air Madrid workforce and will fly back all stranded passengers^[3].

[edit] Destinations

Air Madrid Destinations (All Flights Cancelled Until New Advice):

Madrid to Bogotá, Bucharest, Buenos Aires, Cartagena, Fortaleza, Frankfurt, Guayaquil, Lima, Lisbon, London Gatwick, Milan, Nice, Panama City, Paris, Rome, Quito, San José, Costa Rica, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santiago, Tel Aviv and Toluca.

Barcelona to Bogotá, Bucharest, Buenos Aires, Cartagena, Fortaleza, Guayaquil, Milan, Nice, Quito, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and Santiago

[edit] Fleet

The Air Madrid fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of November 2006)^{[citation needed]}:

1 Airbus A310-300 (to Air Transat as C-GTSX)
2 Airbus A319-132 (both going to Shenzhen Airlines)
3 Airbus A330-200 (SE-RBG back to Novair)(EC-IYN and EC-IYB going to Air Comet "Viajes Pascual")
2 Airbus A330-300 (both to SN Brussels)
1 Airbus A340-300 Going to Iberia (Audeli wet-lease)