AVENSA - Aerovias Venezolanas SA. was founded with the help of Pan Am in 1943, which was also for a long time one of AVENSAs main capital holders. The airline operates, as its main competitor Aeropostal, a fleet of Mc Donnell - Douglas DC-9s as well as a pair of Boeing 737-200s and a fleet of 727-100s/200s The struggling Venezuelan airline commenced its long-range operations to Europe at the end of 1998 when it leased VARIGs PP-VMB which became YV-50C and was the airline's first wide-body aircraft. This aircraft was soon supplemented by YV-51C from the same source, formerly known as PP-VMA, which was VARIGs first DC-10. The routes to Madrid, Lisboa and Rome were inherited from the former flag carrier VIASA, which is now defunct, after the airline had a battle with Aeropostal and ASERCA for the ex-VIASA-routes. Although AVENSA is the only larger Venezuelan carrier which survived the crisis in the middle of the 1990s, this airline is loosing larger parts of its domestic market to ASERCA and also larger parts of the caribbean market to Aeropostal, both of them having newer aircraft (MD-90, A320). Avensa began to cannibalize its own fleet, scrapping some DC-9s and 727s or selling them to other carriers, so that the ceasing of all operations would not be surprising. The european service were supsended and taken up again several times, until 2002, when the DC-10s were stored or transferred to Santa Barbara Airlines. AVENSA, one of Venezuela's oldest airlines, now operates only some domestic flights with an Embraer EMB120 aircraft.
Following aircraft were operated by or for AVENSA:
