SCADTA

SCADTA (acronym of Sociedad Colombo Alemana de Transporte Aéreo) was Latin America's first airline, operating from 1919 until World War II. After the end of World War II, SCADTA merged with Colombian regional carrier SACO to form the current Colombian Flag Carrier: Avianca.

SCADTA was founded in 1919.

SCADTA started out as a small airmail carrier in Colombia, working with Junkers hydro-planes that were capable of landing in Colombia's Magdalena River, mostly due to the fact there were very few suitable landing strips in Colombia at the time. The company's German ownership motivated the U.S. government to subsidize Pan American World Airways expansion in Latin America under the Hoover administration. SCADTA was barred from operating flights to the US and the Panama Canal, although it continued to maintain a broad route network in the Andes region. The formation of Panagra in the 1930s further eroded SCADTA's position in the market. Prior to World War II, the principal shareholder, an Austrian called Von Bauer, secretly sold his shares to United States in an attempt to protect acquisition of the airline by the Nazi Government. In 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, SCADTA was forced to cease operations and its assets were mergedd by the Colombian government into the state owned airline SACO, forming the modern Colombian national carrier: Avianca.