Orbest Orizonia Airlines - History

History

Following the failure of BCM Airlines, Iberworld was founded by Grupo Iberostar, a Spanish tourist company, who wholly owned the new airline. Grupo Iberostar already owned a tour operator, Holiday resorts and hotels and saw that buying BCM would be a quick way to acquire an airline.

The airline was established in 1998 and started operations on 11 April 1998 with a single Lockheed L-1011 Tristar leased from Classic Airways of the United Kingdom. The L-1011 was used on routes from Palma de Mallorca and Malaga to London. The next day, on 12 April 1998, the first Airbus A320-200 was delivered and it started services to complement the Tristar. By 5 May a second A320-200 had been delivered and as the end of Spring approached, they returned the L-1011 to Classic Airways. By the end of the year, however, Iberworld received two new A320 aircraft from Airbus, allowing them to make a 23.6 million Euro profit in just eight months from carrying over 263,000 passengers.

In February 1999, the airline took delivery of their first wide-body aircraft – an Airbus A310 – 300 from Transavia. Later that year, it received its fifth A320 and placed an order for two more of the type. 1999 was Iberworld's first full year of flying and passenger figures rose to over one million, the growth being so considerable due to the gap in the market left by Viva Air (which stopped operations in March 1999). This airline closure allowed Iberworld to open new routes to Caribbean.

In 2000, Iberworld's growth was more modest, with passenger figures rising to 1.1 million with no new aircraft arriving.

Iberworld then placed their first order for a new wide-body in July 2001, an Airbus A330-200 to serve its long-haul destinations. Later that same year, the two A320s on order arrived; however, due to the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, passenger numbers remained around the same as the previous year.

In mid April 2002, the Airbus A330-200 (registered EC-IDB) arrived with seating capacity for 51 Premium passengers and 287 Economy passengers. This acquisition allowed Iberworld to retire the ageing A310-300 in October 2002.

In 2006 Grupo Iberostar decided to sell the airline and other parts of Iberostar for 800 million Euros while keeping the hotels and resorts. Iberworld, together with former Iberostar's tour operators, and Viajes Iberia became the new Orizonia Group owned by the UK's Carlyle Group (55%), Spain's Vista Capital (36%), the ICG Equity Fund (5%) and ten of the company's managers (4%). Later that same year, Iberworld carried over two million passengers, a major milestone in the airline's history.

Iberworld has taken delivery of three A330-300 series aircraft, the larger A330 variant, another A320-200 (from Iberia) and has leased the A330-200 to their Portuguese subsidiary Orbest. This modern Airbus fleet of seven A320-200s, one A330-200 (leased to Orbest) and three A330-300s has allowed Iberworld to report a profit every year since their inception in 1998.

In 2008 the Iberworld fleet paint scheme was changed to a much more appealing and eye-catching design. All of their aircraft now have the new livery.

On 1 May 2011, the airline was rebranded and changed its name to Orbest Orizonia.