Hi.

Was looking through some old pictures from the late 90s at Madrid and noticed that the livery on the Iberia and Aerolineas Argentinas 747 wore a very similar livery, lines along fuselage and white tail with logo. A question then arose on why this was, if it was just a coincident for the similarity, if they had some sort of cooperation or if they just used the same designer/template for the livery?

Couldn't find much information on this so happy if someone here could shed some light on it.

Mumrik wrote:

Hi.

Was looking through some old pictures from the late 90s at Madrid and noticed that the livery on the Iberia and Aerolineas Argentinas 747 wore a very similar livery, lines along fuselage and white tail with logo. A question then arose on why this was, if it was just a coincident for the similarity, if they had some sort of cooperation or if they just used the same designer/template for the livery?

No coincidence here. It was part of IB's strategy during the early 1990s to buy shares in various airlines from South America to build the single largest network in the region.

AR was owned by IB back in the 90s, hence the similar livery.

A similar case: Continental and Copa Airlines.

CO also had their share on Copa Airlines, hence the very similar liveries.

Didn't IB experimented with focus cities in Latin America too using DC9s? I recall their MIA hub connecting to Central America lasting at least a decade. I think at some point they considered opening a focus city in SDQ. They were in a shopping spree in America, Viasa, AR with the intention of creating a global network.

I thought I remember AA being involved with AR around that time. Am I mistaken?

Byrdluvs747 wrote:

I thought I remember AA being involved with AR around that time. Am I mistaken?

You're not. AA managed ARSA after IB.

Just like with SAS and Thai. SAS helped build Thai, and in the beginning the liveries were very similar. Both variations of the Dragon livery with the same fonts and everything.

PRAirbus wrote:

Didn't IB experimented with focus cities in Latin America too using DC9s? I recall their MIA hub connecting to Central America lasting at least a decade. I think at some point they considered opening a focus city in SDQ. They were in a shopping spree in America, Viasa, AR with the intention of creating a global network.

Iberia/Spain (remember at the time IB was still government owned) just wanted as much domination over the Latin American market as possible, and took advantage of the South American countries desire to privatize their various airlines (namely Viasa and AR).

In reality though it was just Spanish taxpayers subsiding the South American airlines because IB really had no idea what they were doing (IB itself was hardly well run at the time and themselves had to be bailed out in the mid-90s) and by the time IB had better management AR and Viasa were both lost causes.

crazyteban wrote:

Byrdluvs747 wrote:

I thought I remember AA being involved with AR around that time. Am I mistaken?

You're not. AA managed ARSA after IB.

It should be noted that IB was still involved with AR at the time. They had a minority ownership of AR along with AA, but the principle owner was SEPI (the Spanish government) who also owned IB at the time. SEPI and AA never really got along when it came to AR and eventually AA left with SEPI taking over their share before SEPI themselves finally gave up and sold AR to Grupo Marsans in 2001 when IB was also privatized.

[quote="Polot"]In reality though it was just Spanish taxpayers subsiding the South American airlines because IB really had no idea what they were doing (IB itself was hardly well run at the time and themselves had to be bailed out in the mid-90s) and by the time IB had better management AR and Viasa were both lost causes.

So much so that VA went belly up a couple of years later.

PRAirbus wrote:

Didn't IB experimented with focus cities in Latin America too using DC9s? I recall their MIA hub connecting to Central America lasting at least a decade. I think at some point they considered opening a focus city in SDQ. They were in a shopping spree in America, Viasa, AR with the intention of creating a global network.

Iberia operated a hub in MIA from where they funneled traffic from Madrid to places in Central America and the Caribbean (Cuba excepted). Post 9/11, the hub was moved to SDQ as new ICE/CPB rules required every connecting traveler had to go through US customs & immigration, rendering the whole MIA hub operation not practical.

In the early 90s, a couple of Iberia's DC-9s were based at EZE from where regional flights to ASU, MVD and SCL operated. Ocassionally they showed up at GRU as well. The cabin crews were from AR.

dcajet wrote:

PRAirbus wrote:

Didn't IB experimented with focus cities in Latin America too using DC9s? I recall their MIA hub connecting to Central America lasting at least a decade. I think at some point they considered opening a focus city in SDQ. They were in a shopping spree in America, Viasa, AR with the intention of creating a global network.

Iberia operated a hub in MIA from where they funneled traffic from Madrid to places in Central America and the Caribbean (Cuba excepted). Post 9/11, the hub was moved to SDQ as new ICE/CPB rules required every connecting traveler had to go through US customs & immigration, rendering the whole MIA hub operation not practical.

In the early 90s, a couple of Iberia's DC-9s were based at EZE from where regional flights to ASU, MVD and SCL operated. Ocassionally they showed up at GRU as well. The cabin crews were from AR.

Actually, It was the other way around. IB's original Latin American hub was established in SDQ for its flights to Central and South America. This hub was later transferred to MIA in the early 90s. Once the new rules came into place post-911, IB considered moving the hub back SDQ or use HAV or CUN instead, but this never materialized.

Santo Domingo hub.

https://airline-memorabilia.blogspot.com/2011/07/grupo-iberia-19911992.html

Aerolineas Argentinas and Viasa put also Austral Líneas Aéreas to the „Iberia“ livery list.

TKflyer wrote:

Aerolineas Argentinas and Viasa put also Austral Líneas Aéreas to the „Iberia“ livery list.

Grupo Iberia was composed of Aerolineas Argentinas, Viasa, Austral, and Ladeco. Unfortunately, these were all mismanaged entities that fed very little passengers into IB's network. IB's stake in Ladeco was minor and never got to see the IB imposed paint scheme.

https://airline-memorabilia.blogspot.com/2009/08/iberia-1996.html

The IB era was a trainwreck at AR (though the Grupo Marsans and the La Cámpora eras that followed managed to be even worse) but I always liked the livery. It looked particularly good on the 742.

LatinPlane wrote:

dcajet wrote:

PRAirbus wrote:

Didn't IB experimented with focus cities in Latin America too using DC9s? I recall their MIA hub connecting to Central America lasting at least a decade. I think at some point they considered opening a focus city in SDQ. They were in a shopping spree in America, Viasa, AR with the intention of creating a global network.

Iberia operated a hub in MIA from where they funneled traffic from Madrid to places in Central America and the Caribbean (Cuba excepted). Post 9/11, the hub was moved to SDQ as new ICE/CPB rules required every connecting traveler had to go through US customs & immigration, rendering the whole MIA hub operation not practical.

In the early 90s, a couple of Iberia's DC-9s were based at EZE from where regional flights to ASU, MVD and SCL operated. Ocassionally they showed up at GRU as well. The cabin crews were from AR.

Actually, It was the other way around. IB's original Latin American hub was established in SDQ for its flights to Central and South America. This hub was later transferred to MIA in the early 90s. Once the new rules came into place post-911, IB considered moving the hub back SDQ or use HAV or CUN instead, but this never materialized.

Santo Domingo hub.

https://airline-memorabilia.blogspot.com/2011/07/grupo-iberia-19911992.html

Thanks for pointing that out.

As part of the "Grupo Iberia", Aerolineas Argentinas also took a page from Iberia's book and operated a mini hub at MIA with flights to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean using a 727-123 wet leased from Av Atlantic. The experiment lasted for a couple years, around 1996-98.

argentinevol98 wrote:

The IB era was a trainwreck at AR (though the Grupo Marsans and the La Cámpora eras that followed managed to be even worse) but I always liked the livery. It looked particularly good on the 742.

At the time it was hard to imagine a fate worse on AR than the Iberia/SEPI tenure. But what followed made that more than one looked back at Iberia with fondness. But AR, like AZ, manages to soldier on, thanks to its guaranteed lifeline: the state coffers.

leleko747 wrote:

A similar case: Continental and Copa Airlines.

CO also had their share on Copa Airlines, hence the very similar liveries.

Similar but not the same. While AR started to get rid of the Iberia-style colourscheme, CM kept the CO-like colourscheme with just a change of the Copa Airlines font. The globe on the tail is still the same one that was inspired by the one UA adopted from CO after the merger.

I think that is the ugliest livery that AR ever had and also what IB did to AR, AU, and VA. UC got out of town in time.
Marsans /Sepi administration, no better.
The red/orange on IB looked ok but the blue/light blue looked really bad especially on AR’s short and stubby 732’s. The 727-200 did not look much better.
Same with AU and VA. Viasa’s orange tail looked cool.

I remembered that Aeroflot, Vietnam Airlines and Air China (CAAC) also used to share (almost) the same livery template, isn't it?
Grey belly, blue lines with big red flag on the tail (except VN when it created its own stork-moon logo).

Now those carriers are obviously using different liveries.

This seemed to be a popular trend in Latin America in the 1990s.

VASP invested in Ecuatoriana and LAB and the carriers adopted similar liveries as well:

I recall AR (AvAtlantic) B727-100 in SJU operating to MIA. AR even opened a sales office in Puerto Rico, that experiment did not last very long. They operated around twice a week to SJU when AA ran 6/7 A300s per day on the same route. I don't think AR (Av Atlantic) could carry local traffic from on SJU-MIA-SJU.

OB1504 wrote:

This seemed to be a popular trend in Latin America in the 1990s.

VASP invested in Ecuatoriana and LAB and the carriers adopted similar liveries as well:

And TAN too, a small argentinian airline based in Neuquén.

PRAirbus wrote:

I recall AR (AvAtlantic) B727-100 in SJU operating to MIA. AR even opened a sales office in Puerto Rico, that experiment did not last very long. They operated around twice a week to SJU when AA ran 6/7 A300s per day on the same route. I don't think AR (Av Atlantic) could carry local traffic from on SJU-MIA-SJU.

No local traffic rights; the idea was to distribute traffic to points beyond MIA with not enough demand from Argentina to warrant its own flight: SJU, YYZ, YUL, etc.

Mumrik wrote:

Hi.

Was looking through some old pictures from the late 90s at Madrid and noticed that the livery on the Iberia and Aerolineas Argentinas 747 wore a very similar livery, lines along fuselage and white tail with logo. A question then arose on why this was, if it was just a coincident for the similarity, if they had some sort of cooperation or if they just used the same designer/template for the livery?

Couldn't find much information on this so happy if someone here could shed some light on it.

Aerolineas Argentinas livery in a nutshell

"Hey Iberia", "Can I copy your homework?"


Iberia: "Sure", "Just make a few changes so it wouldn´t look like you copied."

UA857 wrote:

Mumrik wrote:

Hi.

Was looking through some old pictures from the late 90s at Madrid and noticed that the livery on the Iberia and Aerolineas Argentinas 747 wore a very similar livery, lines along fuselage and white tail with logo. A question then arose on why this was, if it was just a coincident for the similarity, if they had some sort of cooperation or if they just used the same designer/template for the livery?

Couldn't find much information on this so happy if someone here could shed some light on it.

Aerolineas Argentinas livery in a nutshell

"Hey Iberia", "Can I copy your homework?"


Iberia: "Sure", "Just make a few changes so it wouldn´t look like you copied."

Result: