Air Madrid Changes Hands After a Year of Operations

Air Madrid, the Spanish low-cost airline, took a dramatic twist of fate yesterday after Balearic entrepreneur Jose Luis Carrillo, owner of Optursa Hotels, bought out 80 percent of the carrier’s stocks.

Air Madrid, that came into being in January and started out operations in May, will dump the realm of tourist charter flights to enter the big-time world of regular routes. Herminio Gil, one of Air Madrid’s founders, will keep the remaining 20 percent of the shares.

“With this new capital outlay, the company has its future in the bag because we now have a flight schedule that turns away from purely travel conveniences and jumps on the bandwagon of regular flights,” Mr. Gil said.

The operation represents a €24-million capital expansion that will be signed by the two owning partners. At the same time, the move will pave the way for the carrier to clinch the acquisition of a couple of Airbus 340 jetliners in coming months.

Those aircraft will be used to cover the Madrid-Beijing (with stopovers in Munich) and Madrid-Buenos Aires routes with a line of regular flights. In addition to that, Air Madrid will continue flying to Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Panama City, Bogota, Cartagena de Indias, San Jose de Costa Rica and Quito.