Orbest Orizonia Airlines, S.A., formerly ''Iberworld Airlines, S.A.'', was an

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

with its head office in the ''Edificio Orizionia Corporación'' in

Palma de Mallorca Palma (, ; ), also known as Palma de Mallorca (officially between 1983 and 1988, 2006–2008, and 2012–2016), is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is ...

, Spain. It operated regular and charter flights to destinations in Europe and the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, scheduled domestic services, and scheduled international services to

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Palma de Mallorca Airport Palma de Mallorca Airport — also known as Son Sant Joan Airport – is an international airport located east of Palma, Mallorca, Spain, adjacent to the village of Can Pastilla. In 2024, the airport handled 33.3 million passengers, making ...

. Orbest Orizonia was the air division of the Orizonia Group, Spain's third largest tour operator.

History

Iberworld

Following the failure of BCM Airlines, Iberworld was founded by 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 The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar (pronounced "El-ten-eleven") is an American medium-to-long-range, wide-body trijet airliner built by the Lockheed Corporation. It was the third wide-body airliner to enter commercial operations, after the Boeing 74 ...

Tristar leased from Classic Airways of the United Kingdom. The L-1011 was used on routes from

and

Málaga Málaga (; ) is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 591,637 in 2024, it is the second-most populo ...

to London. The next day, on 12 April 1998, the first

Airbus A320-200 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first membe ...

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 eight months from carrying over 263,000 passengers."Iberworld – The First Eleven Years" – ''

Airliner World ''Airliner World'' is an aviation magazine published by Key Publishing in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. In the United States, the magazine is distributed from the Key Publishing office in Avenel, New Jersey. The first edition of ''Airliner Wo ...

'', March 2009 In February 1999, the airline took delivery of their first wide-body aircraft – an

Airbus A310 The Airbus A310 is a wide-body aircraft, Aircraft design process, designed and manufactured by Airbus Industrie GIE, then a consortium of European aerospace manufacturers. Airbus had identified a demand for an aircraft smaller than the Airbus ...

– 300 from

Transavia Transavia Airlines C.V., trading as Transavia and formerly branded as ''transavia.com'', is a Dutch low-cost airline and a wholly owned subsidiary of KLM and therefore part of the Air France–KLM group. Its main base is Amsterdam Airport Sch ...

. 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 the 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 The Airbus A330 is a wide-body airliner developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus began developing larger A300 derivatives in the mid–1970s, giving rise to the A330 twinjet as well as the Airbus A340 quadjet, and launched both designs alon ...

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 World Trade Centers are the hundreds of sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may also refer to: Buildings * World Trade Center (1973–2001), a building complex that was destroyed during the September 11 at ...

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 took delivery of three A330-300 series aircraft, the larger A330 variant, another A320-200 (from

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 ...

) and leased the A330-200 to their Portuguese subsidiary Orbest. The modernized Airbus fleet of seven A320-200s, one A330-200 (leased to Orbest) and three A330-300s allowed Iberworld to report a profit every year since inception in 1998. In 2008, the Iberworld fleet paint scheme was changed to a new design deemed more appealing and eye-catching.

Orbest Orizonia

On 1 May 2011, the airline was rebranded and changed its name to Orbest Orizonia. Orbest Orizonia acceded to judicial protection on 15 February 2013, due to problems in its fusion with the Globalia Group, parent for

Air Europa Air Europa Líneas Aéreas, S.A.U., branded as Air Europa, is the third-largest Spain, Spanish airline after Iberia (airline), Iberia and Vueling. The airline is headquartered in Llucmajor, Mallorca, Spain; it has its main hub at Adolfo Suárez M ...

. On 28 February 2013, it was announced publicly that the Spanish travel agency group Viajes Barceló would buy the airline Orbest along with another travel agent chain called Vibo. Orbest previously employed over 800 employees but with this new deal by the Barceló group, the intention was to employ even more people, just over 900 employees. The airline declared

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

on 5 May 2013 and ceased all operations subsequently.

Fleet

Orbest Orizonia Airlines Airbus A320 Berni

By the time of ceasing operations, the Orbest Orizonia fleet consisted of the following aircraft:

References

External links