Viva Air

Viva Air Airline codes|FV|VIV|Viva was an airline from Spain that operated during the 1980s and 1990s.

History

Viva Air, whose complete name in Spanish was Vuelos Internacionales de Vacaciones (International Vacation Flights) was founded on 24 February 1988 by Iberia and Lufthansa.

Operations began using Boeing 737-300 aircraft. At the beginning flights were mostly from Germany to Spain, mostly to Palma de Mallorca. By 1992 the partnership between Lufthansa and Iberia dissolved and Iberia took over the operations of Viva Air. Shortly thereafter Viva Air entered the Spanish domestic scheduled market using Douglas DC-9 aircraft, but those were quickly replaced by the Boeing 737.

The airline's aircraft were rather distinct in that they wore a very colorful "Dali-esque" livery, symbolizing the Spanish sunshine, for which most of its passengers boarded to seek. After the first few years of operation, the airline was one of the first subsidiary airlines of a major carrier (in this case IBERIA) to gain a foothold into London's Heathrow Airport, from where Viva operated several scehduled services on behalf of it's parent company, however using Viva callsigns and Viva flight numbers.

Since the scheduled flights were losing money, Iberia took over those routes and Viva Air was relegated to charter flights using Boeing 737-300 aircraft, of which it had 10 in service by 1995.

Because of heavy competition from other Spanish and European charter companies, Viva Air began to lose money and by 1998 the operations were ceased and the airline liquidated. Iberia took over all staff, aircraft and route licenses.

Historical Fleet

*3 - Douglas DC-9-32
*10 - Boeing 737-300

External links

* [http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/fv.htm Timetable images]
* [http://www.al-airliners.be/t-z/viva/viva.htm In Memoriam]
* [http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?airlinesearch=Viva%20Air&distinct_entry=true Viva Air pictures at AirlnersNet]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D9133BF936A2575AC0A966958260 News Article on Viva Air]