of Spain disembarks from the
Rohrbach Ro VIII Roland used for the inaugural flight of Iberia from Madrid to Barcelona in 1927. s. in 1946 with the
Douglas DC-4 used for the flight. at Stockholm in 1969. at London – Gatwick in 1973. on approach to land at London – Heathrow in 1978. about to touch down at Miami in 2005. in
Luxembourg Airport, June 2005.
Early years Iberia, Compañía Aérea de Transportes, was incorporated on 28 June 1927 with a capital investment of 1.1 million
pesetas by financier
Horacio Echevarrieta and
Deutsche Luft Hansa. Flight operations commenced on 14 December 1927. The Spanish government contracted the company to provide postal transport between Madrid and Barcelona. During
Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, Spanish aviation companies were amalgamated and became state-controlled as a general interest public utility, starting early 1928. Although the airline had neither a fleet nor commercial operations under its brand, the name 'Iberia' remained registered. received the order from General
Alfredo Kindelán to organize an airline for the air transport in nationalist-held territory during the war. Daniel de Araoz y Aréjula traveled to Germany to get support and material for the restoration of the company as an independent airline, thus six
Junkers Ju 52 from Deutsche Luft Hansa arrived, which were acquired by Iberia at the end of the conflict, in addition to material to help the operations. towards the end of the war. During the conflict Iberia was a purely domestic airline, with headquarters in
Salamanca the airline operated flights to cities in the nationalist side,
Spanish North Africa,
Spanish West Africa and
Morocco. After the war, at the end of the 1930s, the airline served the
Seville–
Larache–
Cape Juby–
Las Palmas,
Barcelona–
Zaragoza–
Burgos–
Salamanca–Seville–
Tetuan and
La Palma–Barcelona–
Vitoria runs using Junkers Ju 52 aircraft. In 1940, the government gave the monopoly of national air transport to Iberia (this fact changed 6 years later when the government liberalised the national air traffic for the private airlines), The airline was
nationalised on 30 September 1944 and became part of
Instituto Nacional de Industria. The policy of the company was to separate itself from the German orbit to which it had been linked in its first years and establish relations with the United States in terms of aircraft purchase and supplies of aeronautical material for the operation. This stimulated the start of
transatlantic flights between Spain and the United States the following year. The airline phased in the first of three
Super Constellations in June 1954. The aircraft was named
Santa María to commemorate
Columbus' first voyage The amendments to Article 6 of the
Convention on International Civil Aviation of 14 June 1954 made in Paris on 30 June 1956 about non-scheduled air services enabled mass tourism using chartered aircraft since allowing European member states to carry out this type of operation with international flights between their territories. This favoured the airline given that it had in its territory several highly sought after destinations, mainly those on the eastern and southern Mediterranean coast and in the Balearic and Canary Islands, highly demanded by seaside tourism which began with this type of operation. In 1959, the Spanish airline
Aviaco became a part of Iberia by controlling two-thirds of its capital in a capital increase. Aviaco had been created in 1948, after the national air traffic had been liberalised for Spanish private companies in 1946. In 1961, Iberia had 9
Super Constellations in the fleet, that year came into service the first
DC-8-50, the four-engined jet airliner was progressively incorporated until reaching the number of 8 aircraft of the 50 series variant. Iberia was gradually incorporating jets of short and middle range, such as
Sud Aviation Caravelle, and
Douglas DC-9. The Super Constellations were removed and sold in 1966, and two years later, three
DC-8-63 with more seat capacity were incorporated into the fleet. By 1969, the long-range fleet of Iberia was composed of 11 DC-8s. Iberia also bought the short-middle range trijet
Boeing 727-200 in 1971, of which the company had 35 aircraft and was used until 2001 like the other short-range jet bought by the company in the late '60s, the Douglas DC-9. In 1987, Iberia, together with
Lufthansa,
Air France and
SAS Group, founded
Amadeus, an IT company (also known as a
Global Distribution System) that would enable travel agencies to sell the founders and other airlines' products from a single system. In the same year, Iberia planned a fleet renewal in the middle-range fleet with the
McDonnell Douglas MD-87 and
Airbus A320 replacing the Douglas DC-9 and Boeing 727 respectively. In June 1990, the carrier bought 16
Boeing 757s for billion, including spares and training; twelve more aircraft of the type were taken on option as a part of the deal. The investments started in June 1990 with the buying of a 30% stake in
Aerolíneas Argentinas. and a 35% stake in Chilean
Ladeco. The airline continued making progress in setting up Europe's first international airline
frequent-flyer programme in 1991, with the creation of
Iberia Plus. In 1994, the poor results of Aerolineas Argentinas, which presented a positive balance in its commercial exploitation but hid a significant deficit with losses in non-operating activities, led Iberia to increase its ownership participation to 85%. With this increase in participation, the Argentine state renounced its "
golden share", allowing Iberia to have full fiscal control of the company. Iberia began a reduction in the size of the company, a liquidation of the national and overseas offices, and the technical sale of its entire fleet composed of 28 aircraft in a
"sale and lease back" operation. This, together with the aforementioned sales, generated a big controversy, giving rise to criticism of the Argentine government for the privatisation of the company. The truth is that during the period that Aerolíneas Argentinas was owned by Iberia (1990–1995), the Spanish airline allocated more than 1,200million dollars to the Argentine flag carrier and kept the airline operating despite the poor results. Some of these changes included the development of a free booking program, the complete computerisation of the management system, the introduction of business class on domestic flights, and the creation of a new hub in
Ezeiza International Airport for long range regional flights to Latin American destinations. In 2008, the president of Argentina
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner expropriated the company from Grupo Marsans for the symbolic price of 1
Argentine peso ($0.57) and renationalised the airline. In July 2017, the
ICSID ordered Argentina to pay 320million dollars to Grupo Marsans for having paid a lower price than the real value of the company. On 7 April 2010, the president of the
Spanish Court of Auditors presented at the Spanish Parliament the figures of the investment in Aerolíneas Argentinas between 1990 and 2001, which was estimated at €2,100million. The plans to make the Iberia group the dominant airline in the Latin American market also failed in Venezuela. In 1997, the board of directors of
Viasa, in which Iberia was the majority, decided to suspend the flights of the company, arguing that the situation was unfeasible. Iberia announcing that the company was not going to continue providing more capital into Viasa if its local partner, the Venezuelan state-owned group FIV, was not going to do the same. By then Iberia had invested more than 250 million dollars in the Venezuelan flag carrier without having any profit. Regarding
Ladeco, Iberia was a minority shareholder (35%) and did not intervene in its management. Initially, Iberia had the intention of achieving the merger of Ladeco with
LAN Chile, but Chilean antitrust laws prevented it. Later, in 1995, LAN Chile made a major acquisition of Ladeco shares and acquired 57.6% of the company, this operation was approved by the Chilean antitrust prosecution, and then began a merger process in which Iberia lost some rights acquired during its time as shareholder of Ladeco. In 1997, Iberia sold its shares in Ladeco. In 1996, the airline launched its
website. The company ordered 76 aircraft from
Airbus in February 1998, which at the time was the largest single Airbus order. The following year it bought Aviaco and inherited that airline's fleet. By the end of the '90s, Iberia owned as majority shareholder the Spanish airlines
Aviaco,
Viva Air,
Binter Canarias and
Binter Mediterraneo, and Latin American airlines
Aerolíneas Argentinas,
Austral,
Viasa and
Ladeco. During 2001, Iberia was
privatised and its shares were listed on stock exchanges. By 2002, when Iberia celebrated its 75th anniversary, it had carried nearly 500million people in its history. In July 2004, Iberia announced it had decided to move its Latin American hub from
Miami, Florida to
San Pedro Sula, Honduras. On 5 February 2006, Terminal 4 at
Madrid - Barajas Airport was turned over to Iberia and fellow
Oneworld alliance members. This provided much-needed expansion capabilities for Iberia. Iberia represents around 60% of the airport's traffic. In 2005, the airline and its regional branch
Air Nostrum transported 21,619,041 passengers via Madrid – Barajas Airport. In November 2006, Iberia launched
Clickair, a
low-cost carrier subsidiary. Clickair merged with
Vueling in 2009. On 12 November 2009, Iberia confirmed that it had reached a preliminary agreement to merge with
British Airways. The merger between the two carriers would create the world's third-largest airline in terms of revenue. On 8 April 2010, it was confirmed that British Airways and Iberia had agreed to a merger, forming the
International Airlines Group, although each airline would continue to operate under its current brand. In November 2012, Iberia announced plans to reduce the number of employees by 4,500 and its fleet by five long-haul and 20 short-haul aircraft. In 2012, Iberia established another low-cost airline,
Iberia Express, which operates short and medium-haul routes from its parent airline's Madrid hub, providing feeder flights onto Iberia's long-haul network. The airline began operating on 25 March 2012 and shares its head office with Iberia in
Chamartín, Madrid. In 2013, the headquarters of both airlines were moved to a new office in Ciudad Lineal, Madrid, and the corporate images have been changed as part of the renewal process. In 2023, Iberia announced its return to Tokyo's
Narita International Airport in October 2024 following its withdrawal in 2020 during the
COVID-19 pandemic. Iberia first started flights to Tokyo in 1986, and began nonstop flying in 1992, but had previously suspended flights between 1998 and 2016. == Corporate affairs ==