Aerovias Nacionales de Puerto Rico

Aerovias Nacionales de Puerto Rico (alternatively known as AMPRI) was an airline company that operated during the 1930s. It was the first documented attempt by Puerto Ricans to have a flag carrier in the United States territory.

History

In 1936, brothers Horacio and Narciso Basso acquired a hydroplane to start commercial airline flights around the Caribbean.

AMPRI started flights from San Juan to Vieques, St. Thomas, St. Croix and Culebra. These flights allegedly took off from Residencial Las Casas, which at the time was a military base and was the place where the first Puerto Rican pilot, Felix Rigau Carrera, took off on his first flight as a pilot. The hydroplane that Aerovias Nacionales used was named "Kofresi", after the famous pirate, Roberto Cofresi.

1937 was an important year for the airline, as the company tried to get air mail contracts. The company struggled in its attempt at getting proper authorization to use postage stamps as a way to suffrage their air mail transports. On April 27, however, Aerovias Nacionales got permission to proceed with the charge of stamps, and by April 28, customers had to pay shipping of goods on Aerovias Nacionales. Costs for shipping were 3 cents on inter island flights and 10 cents on other flights. In 1938, Aerovias Nacionales began issuing their own logo-stamps, which cost 5 cents each. These were used as tax payments, therefore the range of air-mail shipping costs on Aerovias Nacionales rose to 8 cents for inter island flights and 15 cents for flights to other Caribbean spots.

By then, Dennis Powelson, who was a company pilot for the famed Don Q Puerto Rican rum brand, had established his own airline, Powelson Airlines. The Airline would provide Aerovias Nacionales with stiff competition; from May 15 to May 21 of 1938, the USPS organized a race between the two airlines in order to give the winning airline air mail routes. Aerovias Nacionales' airplane was not able to perform its duty and Felix Juan Serralles, who took off from Mercedita Airport in Ponce, won the race for the Powelson Airlines.

On March 22, 1941, a second set of stamps to be used by package senders on Aerovias Nacionales was issued. The total number of different Aerovias Nacionales stamps released in 1941 was eight. Currently, Aerovias Nacionales de Puerto Rico stamps are considered to be collector's items because of the scarcity of such stamps.

Demise

While the exact reason that Aerovias Nacionales de Puerto Rico closed operations remains unknown, it is rumored that the Basso brothers, inspired by the success that Mexicana and Cubana de Aviacion were experiencing elsewhere in Latin America, tried to change the airline's name to "Puertorriqueña de Aviación", with the United States government ruling against the name change because of their understanding that since Puerto Rico is a territory, it shouldn't have an airline that could be perceived as a flag carrier. Those rumors also suggest that the Basso brothers took their case to court, where they would have experienced an adverse decision and lost all of their money trying to win the case.

Fleet

1 Hydroplane

Destinations

*Culebra, Puerto Rico
*St. Croix, USVI
*St. Thomas, USVI
*Vieques, Puerto Rico

External links

* [http://www.yunque.net/lgonzalez/aereo.htm yunque.net, in Spanish]