.jpg) LAPE Caudron C.448 Goéland | |||||||
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| Founded | 1932 (1932) | ||||||
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| Ceased operations | April 1, 1939 (1939-04-01) | ||||||
| Operating bases | |||||||
| Focus cities | |||||||
| Destinations | Santander,Toulouse | ||||||
| Parent company | Govt. of the Spanish Republic (55%) | ||||||
| Headquarters | Madrid, Spain | ||||||
LAPE,Spanish Postal Airlines(Líneas Aéreas Postales Españolas), was Spain's national airline during theSecond Spanish Republic.[1]
LAPE, often also spelt L.A.P.E. and colloquially known as"Las LAPE", replacedCLASSA (Compañía de Líneas Aéreas Subvencionadas), the company that had been Spain's national airline during the dictatorship ofMiguel Primo de Rivera, an airline that was still reeling from theGreat Depression. LAPE was established in April 1932, CLASSA flying under theSpanish Republican Flag for one year.[2] The republican government of Spain compensated CLASSA's shareholders and establishedpostal contracts in order to make the new airline viable. The firstDouglas DC-2, part of the modernization of the fleet inherited from CLASSA, arrived in Madrid-Barajas in March 1935.[3]
In 1932 and 1933 LAPE's air service was restricted to the Madrid-Sevilla and Madrid-Barcelona lines. In March 1934 flights to theCanary Islands were restarted and a few months later in September the line Madrid-Valencia was inaugurated. In 1935 the lines Barcelona-Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona-Valencia and Valencia-Palma de Mallorca were operated, although with interruptions.[4] By June 1936 the company's Canary Islands line included an air service betweenLas Palmas and Tenerife.[5]
The Spanish Republican Airline operated even during theSpanish Civil War in an intermittent and increasingly haphazard manner. Although a great part of the planes of its fleet were requisitioned by theSpanish Republican Air Force and used as military transports, LAPE kept operating in the Republican zones of Spain with its base in Madrid-Barajas. The Madrid-Barcelona line was functioning and it was extended toToulouse. There was also a flight Madrid-Santander until mid-1937 whenSantander fell intoNationalist hands that was flying in a wide roundabout in order to avoid the fronts. Whenever the air battles over Madrid became too difficult to handle for the LAPE pilots, the Madrid-Barcelona line was replaced by Barcelona-Albacete.
Towards the end of February 1939 Republican Air ForceColonel Núñez Mazas issued an order through which the LAPE fleet was concentrated inMonòver (Alicante) —far away from the fronts— in order to avoid the planes falling intoenemy hands.[6] The fleet were used to evacuate numerous Spanish Republican civil and military leaders in the last weeks of the conflict.[6]Finally in April 1939, after the defeat of theSpanish Republican Armed Forces that marked the end of the Civil War, the planes belonging to LAPE's fleet wereexpropriated by theFrancoist government and repainted with theIberia livery.[7]
LAPE was one of the few airlines that used theDouglas DC-1. Other planes used by LAPE included:Fokker F.VII,Spartan Executive,Caudron C.448,Breguet 470,Savoia-Marchetti S.74,Northrop Delta,Douglas DC-2,Ford Trimotor,General Aviation GA-43,Airspeed AS.6J Envoy,de Havilland Dragon Rapide andde Havilland Puss Moth.[8][9]
