Santa Bárbara Airlines C.A, doing business as SBA Airlines and formerly as ''Santa Bárbara Airlines'' prior to 2008, was an
airline with its headquarters on the third floor of the ''Edificio Tokay'' in
Caracas
Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...
,
Venezuela. It operated scheduled domestic and international services. Its main base was
Simón Bolívar International Airport,
Maiquetía (Caracas).
History
The airline was established on 1 November 1995 and started operations on 1 March 1997. At March 2000, the airline had 80 employees and a fleet of three
ATR 42-300s to serve both a domestic and a regional network that consisted of
Aruba
Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
,
Barquisimeto,
Barranquilla
Barranquilla () is the capital district of Atlántico Department in Colombia. It is located near the Caribbean Sea and is the largest city and third port in the Caribbean Coast region; as of 2018 it had a population of 1,206,319, making it Col ...
,
Caracas
Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...
,
Coro
Coro or CORO may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Coro'' (Berio), a composition by Luciano Berio
* Coro (music), Italian for choir
* Coro TV, Venezuelan community television channel
* Omweso (Coro), mancala game played in the Lango region of Uganda
* ...
,
Curaçao
Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...
,
Las Piedras,
Maracaibo
)
, motto = "''Muy noble y leal''"(English: "Very noble and loyal")
, anthem =
, image_map =
, mapsize =
, map_alt = ...
,
Mérida,
Santa Barbara Zulia and
Valencia. It wholly owned
Islas Airways
Islas Líneas Aéreas, operating as Islas Airways, was an airline based in Tenerife, Spain, offering scheduled inter-island services in the Canary Islands out of Tenerife North Airport. It was established in 2002 and started operations in Feb ...
until September 2006, when Islas was sold to the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
company Grupo SOAC. Santa Bárbara Airlines was rechristened as ''SBA Airlines'' in 2008 following the acquisition of the carrier by
Aserca Airlines
Aserca Airlines C.A. (legally ''Aero Servicios Carabobo C.A.'') was an airline based in Valencia, Venezuela. It operated domestic and regional scheduled services to destinations in the Caribbean and Central America. Its main hub was at Arturo Mi ...
.
At first it only covered airline flights to
Cabimas
Cabimas is a city on the shore of Maracaibo Lake in Zulia State in northwestern Venezuela. In 2005, its population was around 200,859.
Before 1900, Venezuela was known to possess commercial quantities of petroleum. One major find was the 'Zumaqu ...
,
Mérida,
El Vigía
The Alberto Adriani Municipality () (better known as El Vigia) is one of the 23 Municipalities of Venezuela, municipalities () that makes up the Venezuelan state of Mérida (state), Mérida and, according to a 2007 population estimate by the Natio ...
and
Santa Bárbara del Zulia
Santa Bárbara del Zulia is a city of some 80,000 inhabitants in Zulia State in Venezuela. It is located to the south-west of Maracaibo Lake, in the Sur del Lago region of the state. Governor and presidential candidate Manuel Rosales was born i ...
. The route to
Alberto Carnevali Airport
Alberto Carnevalli Airport is an airport located southwest of downtown Mérida, the capital of Mérida State in Venezuela. It is named in honor of Alberto Carnevalli ( es), a Venezuelan lawyer and political activist.
The airport is in the C ...
in Mérida was diverted to
El Vigía-Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo International Airport after the crash of Flight 518. Later, the airline took new destinations which covered the routes to
Barquisimeto,
Caracas
Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...
,
Cumaná
Cumaná () is the capital city of Venezuela's Sucre State. It is located east of Caracas. Cumaná was one of the first cities founded by Spain in the mainland Americas and is the oldest continuously-inhabited Hispanic-established city in South ...
,
Las Piedras (Punto Fijo),
San Antonio del Táchira
San Antonio del Táchira is a city in the Venezuelan Andean state of Táchira. The busy highway across the Simón Bolívar International Bridge linking the cities of Cúcuta, Colombia, and San Cristóbal, Venezuela, passes through San Antonio d ...
and
Valencia with a single overseas flight that covered the route Caracas - Oranjestad (Aruba).
In early 2009, a 245-seater
Boeing 767-300ER
The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...
was introduced into the fleet to replace a wet-leased aircraft of the same type, and
Funchal and
Madrid were incorporated into the international network (which already included
Miami,
Quito
Quito (; qu, Kitu), formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley o ...
and
Tenerife) in June the same year.
Later, the airline opened international routes from Caracas to Barranquilla, Quito, Lima, Lisboa, London, Madrid, Miami, New York, Santiago de Compostela, Orlando, Tenerife and Paris. The routes to
New York City and
Lima in the Americas, and
Funchal,
Lisboa,
Madrid,
Tenerife and
Santiago de Compostela in Europe meanwhile ceased.
In late January 2018, the
National Institute of Civil Aviation suspended SBA Airlines for 90 days citing the airline's impossibility to fulfil the schedules, amid the cancellation of some flights that left stranded passengers in Miami.
At this time, the Caracas–Miami route was the only service the airline had available to book at its website.
SBA Airlines ceased operations on after it returned its
air operator's certificate.
Destinations
SBA Airlines served the following scheduled destinations as of January 2018. After all flights were suspended by government authorities on 26 January 2018,
Fleet
Final fleet
As of May 2017, the SBA Airlines fleet consisted of the following aircraft:
Previous fleet
Over the years, SBA Airlines had operated the following aircraft types:
Accidents and incidents
On 21 February 2008, an
ATR 42-300 turboprop airliner operating
Flight 518 from
Mérida to
Caracas
Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...
, went missing shortly after taking off. Forty-three passengers and a crew of three, including two pilots and one flight attendant, were reportedly on board at the time. The remains of the aircraft were found the following day in a mountain range approximately 10 kilometers north-east of
Mérida at an altitude of . No survivors were found. After the accident, the company started a new public relations program as well as a new marketing initiative, switching the airline's name to SBA Airlines.
See also
*
PAWA Dominicana
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:SBA Airlines
Defunct airlines of Venezuela
Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association
Airlines established in 1995
Airlines disestablished in 2018
2018 disestablishments in Venezuela
Venezuelan companies established in 1995