Airline guide: TAME, Ecuador

South American spotting trip inspired me to start two series of compact and detailed reference works for spotters and aviation enthusiasts. First is brief airport spotting guides which I have started with the guide to Galeao International Airport in Rio de Janeiro in the previous post. Second series is the airline guides which will cover the airline’s history, operational network, passenger and operations statistics, as well as fleet information and photographs of the current aircrafts and liveries. Some information in these guides is obtained from sources which cannot be found in the Internet, and all photos are mine own work, unless otherwise mentioned. The fist airline guide is devoted to Ecuadorian flag carrier, TAME.

TAME (EQ / TAE), Ecuador

Summary
TAME is the flag carrier of Ecuador, one of the few survived South American national airlines and one of the largest airlines in Ecuador. TAME is based in Quito and serves regular and charter flights to several international destinations as well as to all domestic airports. The focus city for the company is the largest Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil. TAME is also one of the few airlines which fly to Galapagos Islands. In addition, small fleet of amphibian aircrafts operating as TAME Amazonia connects many remote airstrips in the eastern part of the country with the major cities.

Full Name: TAME EP Linea Aerea del Ecuador

Hub: Mariscal Sucre International Airport (Quito / UIO)
Focus citiy: José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport (Guayaquil / GYE)

Subsidiaries: Air Quito

History
1962. TAME (Transportes Aéreos Militares Ecuatorianos) was founded as airline under the administration of Ecuador Air Force providing commercial flights, governmental transport services and pilots training. The fleet of the company in the 60th and 70th consisted of Dakota C-47, Douglas DC-3 and DC-6, HS-78 Avro and Lockheed L-188 Electras planes.
1966. Regular international flights to Havana, Panama and Santiago de Chile were introduced.
1969. Inter-continental flights to o Los Angeles, Taipei and Hong Kong were started.
In the late 1970th TAME fleet was renewed by purchasing Boeing 727-100 and 727-200. Later in 1980th-1990th 3 Fokker F28 and one 757-200 aircrafts were added to the fleet.
2000-2008. Airlines fleet was renewed by replacing older aircrafts by Airbuses A320 and A319 and Embraer 170/190.
2011. TAME became a state owned company, no longer under Air Force administration.
2011-2013. Three ATR A42-500 and Airbus A330 were purchased.
2018. A subsidiary company, Air Quito, was founded to operate charter flights on acquired Boeing 757.

Airline Today
Currently TAME is the only independent Ecuadorian carrier and on of the major airlines on the local aviation scene. For several decades the Ecuador market was served by Ecuatoriana de Aviacion (former flag carrier), Saeta, SAN, AeroGal, Icaro and Air Cuenca along with TAME. Ecuatoriana suspended operations in 2005, Satena in 2000 and SAN in 1999. Couple of smaller companies like Icaro Air and Air Cuenca ceased operations in 2011, while AeroGal was merged to Avianca changing the name to Avianca Ecuador in 2014. So state-owned TAME is the only Ecuadorean survivor in a continental market. One of the reasons is that only domestic flights are allowed to Galapagos Islands, one of the busiest domestic destinations. Flights to the Galapagos have a much higher concentration of international tourists than other domestic routes, which allows carriers (TAME, Avianca Ecuador and LATAM Ecuador) to charge much higher fares on flights to Galapagos Islands. TAME is also implementing government social project “Tame Amazonia” developed to connect 68 airstrips from Ecuadorian Amazonian east with the rest of country and world. The project is served by 3 9-seated single-engine turboprop Quest Kodiak acquired in 2013. Current TAME fleet consists of 19 aircrafts (11 active / 8 stored).

Logo and Livery
TAME's colors are blue, light blue, and gold as a decorative element. The company’s logo, symbolizes the flight of a bird.

IATA: EQ
ICAO: TAE
Callsign: TAME

Performance (2017):
Passengers: 1 526 348
Passenger-km: 1 582 mln
Seat-km available: 2 026 017
Pasenger load factor 75.34%

Operations (2017)
Aircraft km: 12,656 mln
Aircraft Departures: 18 559
Aircraft Hours: 25860

Fleet (Active/Stored): 19 (11/8)
Airbus A319 1/3
Airbus A320 2/3
Airbus A330 1/0
ATR 42 3/0
Embraer 190 2/1
Quest Kodiak 100 2/1

Destinations: 29
International
Buenos Aires (EZE)
Manaus (MAO)
São Paulo (GRU)
Santiago de Chile (SCL)
Bogotá (BOG)
Cali (CLO)
Havana (HAV)
Mexico City (MEX)
Panama City (PTY)
Lima (LIM)
Fort Lauderdale (FLL)
New York City (JFK)
Caracas (CCS)
Domestic
Baltra Island (GPS)
Coca (OCC)
Cuenca (CUE)
Esmeraldas (ESM)
Guayaquil (GYE)
Latacunga (LTX)
Loja (LOH)
Macas (XMS)
Machala (ETR)
Manta (MEC)
Nueva Loja (LGQ)
Quito (UIO)
Salinas (SNC)
San Cristóbal (SCY)
Tena (TNW)
Tulcan (TUA)

A330-200 (HC-COH), UIO	A319 (HC-CMO) stored at UIO
Embraer 190LR (HC-CGF), UIO	Embraer 190LR (HC-CGF), UIO
ATR 42 (HC-CLT), UIO	A320 stored at UIO
TAME Amazonia Quest Kodiak 100 (HC-CPG) at Shell Mera (PTZ) airport © Nicolas Larenas