TACA AirlinesHistoryTACA Airlines was founded in 1931 by Lowell Yerex. When it began operations, TACA flew single-engine Stinson aircraft. The sole idea of ​​the founder of TACA was to create an airline for each country in Latin America. But despite this idea, of all the franchise airlines created, only TACA International has survived. In 1945, Yerex left the company and TACA was forced to move its headquarters to El Salvador, where the company could modernize and expand. Between the 1940s and 1990s, TACA purchased a majority of the shares of the national airlines of Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua and began operating under the name Grupo TACA. TACA was later organized as an international airline, headquartered in San Salvador under the name TACA International Airlines. During the 1940s and 1960s, TACA Airlines began acquiring turboprop airliners such as the DC-3 and Vickers Viscount in order to expand its routes into the Americas. In the 1970s, TACA Airlines entered the jet age when it acquired its first jet, a BAC One Eleven. The One Eleven was used in the 1970s and early 1980s, then replaced by the Boeing 737-200. Until 1980, TACA Airlines was owned by a US company and was based in New Orleans, Louisiana, under the administration of the Kriete family of El Salvador. During the 1980s, TACA Airlines made several upgrades to its fleet by replacing older turboprops and the One Eleven airliner with more fuel-efficient airliners such as the 737-300 and 737-400. In the 1990s, TACA Airlines became the major user and launch customer of the Airbus A320 model in Latin America. Airbus A320s replace older Boeing 737-200/-300/-400 series...... middle of document ...... announced that it will merge its operations with Avianca, a Colombian airline. The agreement was to work as a combined fleet, but they will retain their own branding and operations. Avianca and TACA Airlines operate a combined fleet of 129 aircraft and serve more than 100 destinations in several countries, including the Americas and Europe. In December 2009, the Colombian Civil Aeronautics Agency approved the merger. FutureGrupo TACA has created an aggressive growth and development strategy aimed at ensuring dominant revenues, competitive cost structure, world-class product integrity and programs necessary to maintain high morale and productivity. Grupo TACA calls it the “Focus Plan” and it is said to be capable of generating over $500 million in annual revenue and is expected to generate over $1 billion in annual sales within the next 5 years.