SKY Airline: A bit of history
The history of SKY Airline (IATA:H2 & ICAO:SKU), a low-cost airline in Chile that began operations in 2002 taking advantage of the void left by the departure of Avant and Aero Continente Chile, can be traced back to 1981 as an executive service operator with Piper Aztec aircraft. It was in 1999 when businessman Jürgen Paulmann, in partnership with Fernando Uauy, decided to acquire this executive air transport service to create an airline oriented to the domestic market that we know today as SKY Airline and that currently represents more than 27% of all domestic air traffic in Chile, placing itself as the second airline in Chile behind LAN Chile.
The first flight of the new domestic airline in Chile took place on 3 June 2002 with a Boeing 737-200Adv from Santiago to Antofagasta, the first of many aircraft that this airline will have in Chile. SKY Airline's current fleet consists of 19 aircraft from the Airbus family (2 Airbus A319s and 17 Airbus A320s) with an average age of 3 years that make regular flights to 14 destinations in Chile, 8 in Peru and 2 in Brazil, 2 in Argentina, 1 in Colombia and 1 in Uruguay.
But it wasn't until 2015, 13 years after its first flight, that SKY Airline expressed its intention to become Chile's first low-cost airline, a process that culminated in March 2017 when the new Chilean low-cost airline began its journey with a new corporate image and a new fare system that allowed for flexibility in the cost of each passenger's air ticket.
SKY Airline's most recent history is full of awards for its operations as it was named "best regional airline in South America" in 2014, 2015 and 2016, as well as "best low-cost airline in South America" in 2018 and 2019 by Skytrax.
SKY Airline's international expansion process led to the opening in 2019 of Sky Airline Peru (IATA:H8 & ICAO:SKX), better known as SKY Peru, a subsidiary of SKY AIRLINE which is currently the second largest airline in Peru and operates flights to 12 destinations in Peru, with international flights planned to Cancun and Punta Cana starting in October 2020.