Avianca Cargo
cargo airline
Avianca Cargo (formerly Tampa Cargo - Transportes Aereos Mercantiles PanAmericanos S.A.) is a cargo airline based at José María Córdova International Airport in Medellín, Colombia. It is an all-cargo airline transporting flowers from Latin America to Miami, as well as general cargo throughout the Americas.
History
The airline was established on March 11, 1973, as TAMPA Cargo, by Luís H. Coulson, Captain Juan Fernando Mesa, Captain Orlando Botero Escobar, and Captain Anibal Obando Echeverri. It commenced operations with a Douglas DC-6A, which formed part of the initial acquired fleet. These were retired in the early 1980s.
After overcoming several crises due to drug trafficking problems in one of its aircraft, in 1988, Tampa Cargo decided to renew its fleet by bringing Douglas DC-8s with the most modern technology of its time, including GPS positioning systems and CFM engines.
Martinair signed an agreement to acquire a 40% stake in Tampa Cargo in 1996, which was later increased to 58% in 2003.
On July 26, 2003, the company inaugurated its Maintenance Hangar in Rionegro-Antioquia, and the new route to Peru was placed in operation that same year. In September 2004, Tampa Cargo started its fleet renovation by incorporating the Boeing 767-200ER.
Avianca acquired a 100% stake in Tampa Cargo in July 2008.
On February 1, 2010, Tampa Cargo was advised that after concluding the regulatory approval and the approval of competencies required to concrete the union announced in October 2009, Synergy Group, the owner of Avianca, and Kingsland Holding Limited, the owner of Grupo TACA, signed the Agreement through which the closing that started up the strategic union of their businesses was made official, and that the name of the strategic union was AviancaTaca Holding.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Avianca Cargo” is cargo airline. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Avianca, Cargo and cargo, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “cargo airline” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1139445. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1988, 1996 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Avianca Cargo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.