Binter Canarias S.A. is the

flag carrier A flag carrier is a transport company, such as an airline or shipping company, that, being locally registered in a given sovereign state, enjoys preferential rights or privileges accorded by that government for international operations. Histo ...

of the Spanish

autonomous community The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...

of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

, based on the grounds of

Gran Canaria Airport Gran Canaria Airport () is a passenger and freight airport on the island of Gran Canaria. It is an important airport within the Spanish air transport network (owned and managed by a public enterprise, AENA), as it holds the sixth position in te ...

Telde Telde is a municipality in the eastern part of the island of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, overseas (Atlantic) insular Spain. It borders Las Palmas to the north and is part of its urban area. It is the second most populous municipality on the is ...

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, a Spain, Spanish archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa. the island had a population of that constitut ...

and Tenerife North Airport,

San Cristóbal de La Laguna San Cristóbal de La Laguna (commonly known as La Laguna, ) is a city and municipality in the northern part of the island of Tenerife in the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on the Canary Islands, Spain. The former capital of the Canary Islan ...

, Spain. It is a regional air carrier operating inter-island services within the

, and other Atlantic islands, it also operates to the Spanish Mainland, Portugal and some Africans destinations. Affiliated airlines operate on behalf of Binter in services to

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, mainland

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

History

Foundation and early years

The airline was established on 18 February 1988 and started operations on 26 March 1989. It was formed as a subsidiary of

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, compri ...

. Binter Canarias began operations as a

regional airline A regional airline is a general classification of airline which typically operates scheduled passenger air service, using regional aircraft, between communities lacking sufficient demand or infrastructure to attract mainline flights. In North ...

and is currently the only one to operate in the eight airports of the Canaries. Binter also operates connections with

Marrakech Marrakesh or Marrakech (; , ) is the fourth-largest city in Morocco. It is one of the four imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakesh–Safi Regions of Morocco, region. The city lies west of the foothills of the Atlas Mounta ...

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The Departments of Senegal, department of Dakar has a population of 1,278,469, and the population of the Dakar metropolitan area was at 4.0 mill ...

, Aaiun in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

;

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

, and

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

; Sal in

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

; and

Vigo Vigo (, ; ) is a city and Municipalities in Spain, municipality in the province of province of Pontevedra, Pontevedra, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Spain. Located in the northwest ...

and

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

. The airline also flies to the island of Madeira, serving the capital Funchal. Regular flights to the cities of Bergamo and Paris were trialled but later cancelled as unsuccessful projects. Nowadays has regular flights to Lisbon and Cape Verde for renting technical crew and aircraft (CRJ) to Air Nostrum. The airline also serves Africa: it operates scheduled flights to Marrakech, Casablanca and Laayoune in Morocco, alongside charter flights to Nouadibou and Nouakchott in Mauritania. In late 1999 SEPI (the Spanish state holding company of Iberia) implemented the privatisation of Binter Canarias, but held on to a "golden share", permitting it to authorise any future shareholding deal of more than 25%. However, the airline was wholly owned by Hesperia Inversiones Aéreas, which bought the airline in July 2002. In 2003, Binter Canarias, SAU was absorbed by Hesperia Inversiones Aéreas, SA, which took the name of Binter Canarias, SA. It is now owned by Ilsamar Tenerife (49.81%), Ferma Canarias Electrica (10.44%), Agencia Maritima Afroamericana (10.11%), Flapa (10%) and others (19.6%) and has 406 employees. Binter has sales offices, Binter Vende, at the airports, and since 2005, the ground support service has been provided by Atlántica Handling. Since January 2008, the technical service for Binter aircraft has been provided by BinterTechnic.

Development since 2010

Some of the owners of Binter Canarias decided to buy Navegacion y Servicios Aéreos Canarios (NAYSA) and to transfer some planes from Binter to NAYSA in order to reduce costs and increase benefits. The airline also established Canarias Airlines (trading as Canair) as a low-fare subsidiary in 2011. In 2016, the airline agreed a deal for a further six ATR 72-600 aircraft, bringing total commitments to the type to 18. They will replace

ATR 72-500 The ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop, short-haul regional airliner developed and produced in France and Italy by aircraft manufacturer ATR. The number "72" in its name is derived from the aircraft's typical standard seating capacity of 72 pa ...

aircraft. In spring 2018, Binter decided to merge Navegacion y Servicios Aéreos Canarios (NAYSA) into its own operations and therefore handed back NAYSA's

air operator certificate An air operator's certificate (AOC) is the approval granted by a civil aviation authority (CAA) to an aircraft operator to allow it to use aircraft for commercial air transport purposes. This requires the operator to have personnel, assets and s ...

. Since then, all former NAYSA operations are part of Binter's.ch-aviation.com – Spain's Binter Canarias shutters Naysa Aerotaxis unit
2 March 2018ch-aviation.com Naysa Aerotaxis
retrieved 12 May 2018 Since late 2017, Binter Cabo Verde took over inter-island flights in

after the discontinuation of flights by TACV on 1 August 2017, as TACV was restructuring and privatising. Binter CV established a partnership covering TACV's international services, allowing TACV to offer connections to domestic destinations and seeking to strengthen inter-island connections. In 2019, Binter Cabo Verde was renamed as Transportes Interilhas de Cabo Verde (TICV), and in 2021, the Canarian company sold its 70% stake in the airline to BestFly Worldwide, thus completing its divestment. In June 2018, it began domestic operations between Madeira and Porto Santo Islands in the northern neighboring Madeiran archipelago. The airline's first of ten Embraer E195-E2 aircraft started passenger revenue service in December 2019 as the European launch customer. In June 2023, Binter launched an additional subsidiary alongside Canarias Airlines. This subsidiary, Naysa Servicios Aéreos, uses the name of the former carrier which had been merged into Binter and Canarias Airlines in 2018. Binter's original AOC - named Binter Airlines since 2015 - now exclusively operates the E195-E2 jet fleet, having disposed of its last ATR 72-500 in September 2024 after transferring its newer ATR 72-600 aircraft to Naysa. Alongside Canair and Naysa, this AOC operates under the Binter Canarias parent brand.

Destinations

As of August 2024, Binter Canarias serves the following destinations:

Codeshare agreements

Azores Airlines Azores Airlines, previously known as SATA Internacional, is a Portuguese airline based in the Concelho, municipality of Ponta Delgada, on the island of São Miguel Island, São Miguel in the autonomous archipelago of the Azores. A subsidiary of ...

Interline agreements

* APG Airlines * Hahn Air

Fleet

Current fleet

, Binter Canarias operates the following aircraft:

Previous fleet

The Binter Canarias fleet has previously included the following aircraft: *31 ATR 72-202 *1

Boeing 737-400 The Boeing 737 Classic is a series of narrow-body airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the second generation of the Boeing 737 series of aircraft. Development began in 1979 and the first variant, the 737-300, first flew in Febru ...

(leased from

Futura International Airways Futura International Airways was an airline with its head office in the ''Zona Facturación'' on the property of Palma de Mallorca Airport in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. It operated scheduled services and charter flights for tour operators and oth ...

) *8

Bombardier CRJ200 The Bombardier CRJ100 and CRJ200 (previously Canadair CRJ100 and CRJ200) are regional jets designed and manufactured by Bombardier Aerospace between 1991 and 2006, the first of the Bombardier CRJ family. The ''Canadair Regional Jet'' (CRJ) pr ...

(leased from

Air Nostrum Air Nostrum (doing business as Iberia Regional) is a Spanish regional airline based in Valencia that merged with CityJet in 2023, forming the region's largest aviation holding company, Strategic Alliance of Regional Airlines (SARA). An affiliate ...

) *3 Bombardier CRJ900 (leased from Air Nostrum) *3 Bombardier CRJ1000 (leased from Air Nostrum) *4 Douglas DC-9-30

Accidents and incidents

* On 18 October 2016, an ATR 72-600 operated by NAYSA diverted to

, Canary Islands, Spain, due to problems with the left hand main landing gear. The aircraft operated on a training flight, RSC001K, out of Tenerife-Norte Los Rodeos Airport. Upon returning to Tenerife, it was detected that one or both tires of the left hand main gear had burst or deflated. It was decided to divert to Las Palmas where the aircraft flew two low passes over runway 03L. A safe landing was then carried out at 12:22 UTC.

References

External links

Official website
{{Use British English, date=October 2010 Airlines established in 1989 Airlines of Spain Transport in the Canary Islands European Regions Airline Association Companies of the Canary Islands Spanish companies established in 1989 Transport in Las Palmas