HISTORY

Early in the life of commercial aviation, Venezuela did not have an effective communications network. This was due to a railway system that failed to criss-cross  the country. Compounding the problem was an irregular topography that didn’t make it any easier for vehicular traffic. Despite this, Venezuela was one of the last South American nations to resort to commercial aviation as an effective means of transportation.

It is here that the French company Aéropostale, then under the leadership of its owner Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont, decides to venture into Venezuela in 1929. The country was virtually split in two by the Orinoco River, and at the time the southern portion was an area rich in gold and, later, a steel producer. All this starting at the port of Ciudad Bolívar, some 300 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean, and close to Port-of-Spain. On the other side there sits the City of Maracaibo, from which great quantities of oil are extracted and transported to refineries in the neighboring island of Curaçao.

In light of these conditions, Aeropostale viewed Venezuela as the ideal bridge to link South America with the Caribbean islands of Guadalupe and Martinique. This idea actually materialized on July 3, 1929.

Three Latécoé 28’s carried out the first flights of the new airline, although some Latécoé 26’s were also used in those earlier routes. On December 31, 1933, the Venezuelan government purchased the airline after the French government inexplicably decided to stop subsidizing it.

Despite its new Venezuelan ownership, the airline continued to be run by French personnel under the direction of Robert Guérin until January 1, 1935, when its name was changed to Línea Aeropostal Venezolana (LAV) and operations shifted to Venezuelan hands under the management of commander Francisco Leonardi. At the start, the company was capitalized at 1,600,000 Bolívares, but it wasn’t until May 21, 1937, that the government of Venezuela secured full ownership of the airline. It did so through an injection of capital and by replacing the Latécoé 28’s with several Fairchild 71’s. The expansion program was further reinforced with the purchase of six Lockheed Electras model 10A. In 1939 the operations center was moved from Maracay to Maiquetía because to its nearness to Caracas. By 1942 the fleet had grown considerably. And World War II increased the interest in air travel considerably, especially as South America and, particularly, Venezuela, had become one of the most important oil suppliers to the allied forces.

By 1994 commercial operations had been closed as part of a government effort to trim expenses. This resulted in the company being sold to the CORPORACION ALAS DE VENEZUELA in 1996, a fully private company that re-started operations on January 7, 1997.

Today, AEROPOSTAL ALAS DE VENEZUELA has become a model for commercial aviation in Venezuela. It has captured the lion’s share of the flying public through on-time performance, security and service. Nothing short of this would have done justice to the tradition of excellence in service transmitted to us through generations.