“Victoria International Airways is a new airline based in Spain that offers Full Charter Service to tour operators and travel agencies…”. This is the presentation of the airline in their LinkedIn page, which also informs that their fleet is composed of Airbus 320s with a 180 seat cabin configuration.
This morning, Preferente.com published an article about this company. According to the information in it, they will not be able to start for the moment due to lack of an aircraft. The airline is being created by several entrepreneurs from Málaga and Mallorca. The project was born more than a year ago and has people from the airline industry involved. The original plan was to start operations last year but, apparently, it was not possible to reach an agreement for the first plane. Several attempts have been made, not only in Spain, but in other countries as well. However, leasing an aircraft has not been possible so far despite having a viability plan with the necessary funding to start operations.
This problem has delayed the approval of their Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC). Representatives from Victoria International Airways submitted all the necessary documentation last year to get the AOC approved. Knowing that this process might take longer than expected they had considered a “plan B” which was to start operations using another airline’s AOC. To this respect, it may be interesting to note that it is five years now since Plus Ultra started to try and get their AOC, although the procedures for that AOC may be different.
The airline’s web site, www.victoriaairways.com explains they intend to become the “first strategic provider of aviation services for the general aviation industry, and tourism in particular”. For that purpose they required at least two aircrafts to operate from several European sources to destinations such as Málaga or Palma. In fact, despite having the company registered in the Canary Islands, the home base is expected to be the Palma de Mallorca airport.
Photo: Screenshot from the Victoria International Airways web site.
