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Founded | 1945 | ||||||
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Hubs | Juan Santamaría International Airport | ||||||
Frequent-flyer program | LifeMiles | ||||||
Alliance | Star Alliance (affiliate) | ||||||
Fleet size | 44 | ||||||
Destinations | 35 | ||||||
Parent company | Avianca | ||||||
Headquarters | San José, Costa Rica | ||||||
Key people | Roberto Kriete (CEO) Fabio Villegas Ramírez (Chairman & CEO of Holding Company) |
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Website | www.avianca.com |
Avianca Costa Rica, formerly known as LACSA (Spanish: Lineas Aéreas Costarricenses S.A.), minority owned by the Synergy Group, is the national airline of Costa Rica and is based in San José. It operates international scheduled services to over 35 destinations in Central, North and South America. The airline previously used the TACA/LACSA moniker when it was a subsidiary of Grupo TACA. Since May 2013, following Avianca's purchase of Grupo TACA, Avianca Costa Rica became one of seven nationally branded airlines (Avianca Ecuador, Avianca Honduras, etc.) operated by Avianca Holdings group of Latin American airlines.
LACSA was established on 17 October 1945 by Pan American World Airways, the Costa Rican government and Costa Rican private interests. It started operations on 1 June 1946 and was designated the national carrier in 1949. Its domestic network was transferred to its wholly owned subsidiary Sansa in September 1959.
LACSA operated the Douglas DC-6B four-engined piston airliner from 1960 until 1976 on their regular passenger, and eventually freight, scheduled flights to Miami International Airport. The airline introduced the first of their British Aircraft Corporation BAC One-Eleven twin-engined jet airliners onto their Caribbean passenger route network in April 1967.
The airline also operated a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, Cayman Brac Airways (CBA) Ltd., which it sold a 51% controlling interest in the late 1960s to the Cayman Islands government which in turn used the air carrier to form Cayman Airways. LACSA served Grand Cayman for many years as an intermediate stop on its services between San Jose, Costa Rica and Miami.