Spantax

If you go through spotters’ old slide boxes from the 1970s, sooner or later you come across a name: Spantax. The Spanish charter airline flew vacationers from all over Europe to Mallorca and the Canary Islands – for a long time with an aircraft hardly anyone else still used: the Convair 990 Coronado. Spantax was colorful, loud and fast-growing, but also marked by serious accidents. This page shows you how the airline came about, which aircraft it flew and how to place Spantax aircraft with confidence in historic photos.

Spantax at a glance

Spantax was a historic Spanish charter airline that existed from October 6, 1959 to March 29, 1988. The name is an abbreviation of “Spanish Air Taxi.” It was founded by two former Iberia people: the pilot Rodolfo Bay Wright and the flight attendant Marta Estades Sáez. Formally the company was based in Madrid, but operationally its business took place mainly on the islands – first on Gran Canaria, later also in Palma de Mallorca.

The business model followed the boom in package tourism. Tour operators in northern Europe needed capacity to bring their guests to Spain’s beaches, and Spantax supplied the aircraft. The difference between such charter flights and classic scheduled service is explained in the article Charter flights and scheduled flights. Later, transatlantic charters to the USA, Canada and Venezuela were added, and in 1983 even flights to Japan over the polar route with a stopover in Anchorage.

In 1980, Spantax employed just under 1,170 people and carried just over two million passengers. That made the airline, for a time, one of Europe’s big charter airlines.

The history in stages

Codes and callsign

• IATA code BX: appeared in the flight number, that is on tickets, schedules and departure boards.
• ICAO code BXS: used in the air traffic control flight plan.
• Callsign SPANTAX: how the crews identified themselves on the radio.

The Spantax fleet

Over its history, Spantax flew a striking number of different types. From the small air taxi to the widebody jet, it had almost everything that played a role in three decades of charter aviation. The most important types at a glance:

Type	Period (approx.)	Use	Spotter tip
Douglas DC-3 / C-47	from 1960	Inter-island service in the Canaries	Twin-engine taildragger of the early years
Douglas DC-7C	from 1963	Charters to Britain and Europe	Last big piston-engine generation, four radial engines
Fokker F27 Friendship	from 1966	Short-haul	High-wing with two turboprops
Convair 990 Coronado	1967 to mid-1980s	Backbone of European charters	Four engines, antishock bodies on the wings
DC-8-61	from 1973	Transatlantic charters	Greatly stretched fuselage, four engines under the wings
DC-9 (incl. DC-9-14)	1974 to 1984	Short- and medium-haul	Rear-mounted engines, T-tail
DC-10-30 / DC-10-10	from 1978	Long-haul, big charter chains	Third engine in the vertical stabilizer
Boeing 737-200	from 1983	Replacement for the DC-9	Short fuselage, slim engines under the wing
McDonnell Douglas MD-83	1987/1988	Two leased aircraft from autumn 1987	Arrived only shortly before the end

There were also types like the DC-4, DC-6, the de Havilland Canada Twin Otter and a single Dash 7, which Spantax operated on behalf of Iberia on the Málaga–Melilla route. In the late phase, leased aircraft also flew for it: Boeing 737s from Sabena and widebody jets from Malaysia Airline System, including two Boeing 747s.

The Convair 990 – the trademark

The Convair CV-990 Coronado was originally built for US scheduled airlines but sold poorly. For Spantax, that was exactly the opportunity: from 1967, the airline took over used examples from American Airlines, more followed through 1972, and in 1975 four more former aircraft of Swissair. That gave Spantax one of the largest 990 fleets ever – depending on the source, it counts as the largest or second-largest operator of the type.

The Coronado was very fast for its time and recognizable by the antishock bodies on the wing trailing edge. In the 1970s, Spantax had the engines retrofitted with low-smoke combustors. In 1979 twelve examples were still in service, in 1983 five, and as late as 1986 a Spantax 990, EC-BZO, is documented in photos.

DC-8 and DC-10 for long-haul

For charter flights across the Atlantic, Spantax used the stretched Douglas DC-8 in the -61 version from 1973. In October 1978, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 brought its first widebody. The first DC-10, EC-DEG, was a DC-10-30CF and was destroyed in Málaga in 1982. After that, Spantax flew several leased and purchased DC-10s in succession, including a former Swissair aircraft from 1984. The manufacturer of these types is McDonnell Douglas.

Accidents and incidents

The history of Spantax is closely tied to several serious accidents. They are part of the airline and also explain why its reputation suffered in the 1980s.

• December 7, 1965, Tenerife: A DC-3 crashes after takeoff from Los Rodeos on its way to Las Palmas. All 32 occupants, mostly Scandinavian tourists, die.
• January 5, 1970: A Convair 990 crashes on a ferry flight from Stockholm-Arlanda to Zurich, flown with only three running engines. Five of the ten crew members are killed.
• December 3, 1972, Tenerife: Flight 275, a Convair 990 to Munich, crashes in almost zero visibility shortly after takeoff from Los Rodeos. All 155 people on board die – at the time the worst accident of a Spanish airline. You’ll find more on this airport’s difficult situation on the page about Tenerife North Airport and in the article on the Tenerife disaster of 1977.
• March 5, 1973, near Nantes: During an air traffic controllers’ strike in France, a Spantax Coronado collides in midair with an Iberia DC-9. The Convair loses part of its wing but lands safely; all 68 people on the Iberia aircraft die.
• April 4, 1978, Cologne/Bonn: A Convair 990 lands with its landing gear retracted. The wing catches fire, but all 146 occupants survive.

The Málaga crash of 1982

The most consequential event was the accident of Flight 995 on September 13, 1982 at Málaga Airport. The DC-10-30CF EC-DEG taxied for takeoff toward New York with 394 people on board. Shortly before the decision speed V1, heavy vibrations set in. The crew initially continued the takeoff but then rejected it at around 175 knots – well above V1 and already above rotation speed.

On the remaining runway, the aircraft could no longer stop. It rammed the approach lighting and ILS installations, broke through the fence, crossed the road to Torremolinos, hit vehicles and came to rest at an agricultural building. Fuel caught fire. 50 people died, most from smoke inhalation in the rear fuselage, where only one door was usable.

The Spanish accident investigation found the cause at the nose gear: a retread tire had come apart and burst. It judged the decision to reject the takeoff understandable given the information available and the training of the time, which focused on engine failures. The recommendations concerned, among other things, training for other problems on takeoff and the handling of carry-on baggage during evacuations.

How to recognize Spantax in old photos

Because Spantax stopped flying long ago, you now run into it almost only in archive pictures. A few features help with placing it:

A special case are the leased aircraft of the late phase. Some flew in mixed liveries, such as a DC-10-10 from World Airways in a hybrid scheme. How to read such transition colors is explained in the article on hybrid and mixed liveries.

Spantax and the Spanish charter industry

Spantax was part of a whole generation of Spanish leisure airlines. Alongside the state-owned Aviaco, private companies shared the market, and later providers like Air Europa, Futura International Airways and Spanair joined. Spantax occasionally cooperated with Iberia, for example on the route to Melilla or on charter flights to Venezuela.

The most important stages were the holiday airports: Palma de Mallorca, Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Málaga on the Costa del Sol. If you visit the airports today, the spotter guides for Mallorca and the Canary Islands give you the best locations – Spantax is history there, but the charter traffic from northern Europe has remained.

The end in 1988

After the oil crisis of 1979, costs rose, while the European charter market became ever more fiercely contested. The fleet was old, and the Málaga crash damaged its reputation. In 1986, strikes by pilots and technicians crippled operations, and the Spanish state took control in view of high debts.

In April 1987, the Aviation Finance Group of Luxembourg bought the airline. Two leased MD-83s did arrive in autumn 1987, but refinancing and further fleet renewal failed. When a potential investor dropped out, Spantax ceased flight operations on March 29, 1988. Around 7,000 passengers were stranded all over Europe. Spantax thus joins a long list of major airline failures in Europe.

Common mix-ups

• Equating Spantax and Spanair – two different airlines, Spanair only started anew in 1986.
• Thinking BX is still Spantax – the IATA code has since been assigned differently.
• Assigning every Convair 990 to Spantax – American Airlines, Swissair and others also flew the type.
• Mixing up the DC-8-61 and the DC-8 of the early series – the -61 has a much longer fuselage.
• Logging leased aircraft as its own fleet – in the late phase, many leased aircraft flew along.

Conclusion

Spantax stands for the wild early years of mass tourism: an air taxi from Gran Canaria that became a big charter airline, brought vacationers to Spain with the Convair 990 and later flew across the Atlantic with the DC-8 and DC-10. Serious accidents, an aging fleet and financial problems led to its end in 1988. For collectors, Spantax is a gem in any archive today – especially when a Coronado with an EC registration is in the picture.