Aeronaves De México Pt1: Cuauhtli Takes Flight

Aeronaves De México was established on 15th September 1934, but it wasn’t until September 12, 1940, when Pan Am purchased a 40% stake, that it began to go places. At that point it still was a one route airline connecting Mexico City to Acapulco using a variety of single engined aircraft like Stinson Reliants. The Pan Am stake substantially increased the young airline's capital base and allowed the acquisition of a pair of Boeing 247Ds enabling the single route to go daily from September 30, 1941.

Aeronaves De México Douglas DC-3 XA-FUV JC Wings 1:400 Scale Model Airliner in 1960s colours

Between 1941 and 1945 the airline expanded by acquisiton, taking over Transportes Aereos del Pacifico in 1941, Servicios Aereos Zarae in 1942, Taxi Aereo de Oaxaca in 1943 and Lineas Aeras Jesus Sarabia in 1944. The route structure extended up and down the Pacific coast of Mexico though many of the smaller feeder routes were dropped. The network was loosely split into two components which were joined when a Mexico City- Mazatlan trunk route began. As the airline grew and took on a more standard form it was inevitable that the collection of smaller aircraft would need to be replaced and the obvious candidate was the ubiquitous Douglas DC-3. The first joined the fleet in September 1946 and eight were in operation by November 1949, which was also when the first C-54/DC-4 joined. The aircraft wore a simple livery of blue stripes. The distinctive Aztec Eagle Warrior god 'Cuauhtli' of later years was yet to feature on the tail. By 1950 the airline was carrying over 145,00 passengers per annum.

These images to the right give you an idea of the simple livery of the 1950s:

In 1952 Aeronaves De México expanded into north central Mexico with the acquisition of Lineas Aereas Mexicanas, S.A. (LAMSA) from the U.S. carrier United Air Lines. LAMSA had been established as Lineas Aereas Mineras, S.A.on August 27, 1934 to link the San Luis mine at Tayoltita with Mazatlan. Further routes were added, the most important of which was a multi-stop trunk service between Mexico City and Ciudad Juarez in December 1937.

In September 1943 United Airlines acquired a 75% stake in the airline, changed its name (but kept the LAMSA acronym), applied to extend service to Los Angeles and Phoenix in 1944 and provided 5 of its Boeing 247Ds to LAMSA.

In 1946 6 DC-3s were added to the fleet but United's attempts to grow the airline were thwarted by Mexico's President, Miguel Aleman, who was keen to lessen US influence in Mexico. Eventually on July 22, 1952 United sold LAMSA to the Mexican Government, for $1,230,000, which merged it with Aeronaves De México.

The below image is XA-FUV in the LAMSA livery (almost an exact copy of the United Airlines scheme) taken from the wonderful collection of Ed Coates - see here

XA-FUV was one of the six DC-3s transferred from United to LAMSA. She was originally delivered to United Airlines in November 1940 as NC25617 ‘Mainliner Youngstown’. She served with United until June 1946. Renamed ‘Ciudad de Chihuahua’ she served with LAMSA until they were merged into Aeronaves De México. She continued in service with them until at least 1967 and was at some point reregistered as XB-JBR. She survived until the 21st May 2002 when she was written off in an accident at Lake Casa Blanca, Texas. Below she can be seen in Aeronaves De México 1960s colours.

In October 1953, Aeronaves de México purchased Aerovias Reforma (see above timetable) to further serve the Pacific coast. Four new Convair 340s were ordered to replace some of the DC-3s. They joined the fleet in April 1954 as XA-KIL-KIN and XA-KOU. Further fleet upgrades occurred in February 1957 when a pair of Lockheed L-049 Constellations were leased from Pan Am and became XA-MAG/H. They replaced the C-54s on the Mexico City-Guadalajara-Tijuana service, but Aeronaves had its eye on longer routes and before the year was out would be an international airline. This is what we'll investigate in part 2.

References

Airplane Issue 202: Civil Aviation - Aeromexico
Airline Timetable Images
RZjets