Grove Koger
I admit up front that I really don’t have much to say about Compañia Aérea del Mediterraneo. So far as I can determine, there’s really not much to be said.
My interest in the Spanish airline has been sparked by a reproduction of a sign I bought years ago in Palma, the capital of the island of Mallorca. It was market day, and vendors had gathered behind long tables to sell everything under the sun, including postcards and other forms of paper memorabilia. And it was in one dealer’s tray that I saw a reproduction of what, I believe, would have been an enameled metal sign—an advertisement for a company identified as Aérea del Mediterraneo, S.A. (The initials stand for “Société anonyme,” more or less the equivalent of our “Incorporated.”). The name meant nothing to me, but the image was immediately arresting. To this day, its wonderfully balanced but dynamic arrangement of shapes, letters, and colors is one of the most graceful pieces of design I’ve ever seen.
Wanting to know more, I’ve taken a careful look at the reproduction. In tiny letters on the right side of the sign I can make out what may be the name of the artist—“Merino”—but I can’t identify anyone by that name active during the 1930s.
Next, I’ve spent some time tracking down what little information about the company I can find online, and I’ve turned up a handful of references.
On September 24, 1933, for instance, the Gaceta de Madrid carried a notice that Ginés Mayoral Andreu, the managing director of Aérea del Mediterraneo, had been granted a concession to carry passengers and small packages between Barcelona, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia. The company was said to have at its disposal two Dornier “Wall” aircraft with engines built by Hispano-Suiza. Along with information about ticket prices, the notice also stated that the first three flights—and this may be pertinent—were to be considered “test trips.” This notice was repeated on September 27 by La Vanguardia.
The company’s planes were flying boats, versions of the Dornier Do J Wal (“Whale”). Each sported a wing mounted above its fuselage and two propellers—a “tractor” and a “pusher”—mounted above that. Models destined for civilian use could carry 12 passengers. In Flying Boats & Seaplanes—A History from 1905 (Bay View, 1998), Stéphane Nicolaou calls the aircraft (seen above in the harbor of Slite, Sweden, in the summer of 1925) the “greatest commercial success in the history of marine aviation.” You can watch a 1935 film of one departing from Bathurst, Gambia, here.
However, Aérea del Mediterraneo doesn’t seem to have been able to take advantage of its Dorniers. In “La Aeronáutica Española de 1898 a 1936,” L. Utrilla Navarro mentions that the company “only made a few flights on the Barcelona-Palma-Valencia line.” In “Das Flugboot Dornier ‘Wal’ (DO J),” Günter Frost calls it “rather short-lived.”
And that’s it. I can’t determine what factors led to the company’s early demise. Like much of the rest of the world, however, Spain suffered during the years of the Great Depression (1929-1939), with its economy suffering a slowdown of about 20 per cent. So, was the economic situation to blame? Did it doom a concern relying on people’s ability to travel? Were those three “test runs” the only flights? The answers may lie in a forgotten file in some dusty archive in Spain, but I’ll never know.
Aérea del Mediterraneo’s life, like that of many businesses, seems to have been brief. But in commissioning a talented artist to create a sign, it left a lovely memorial to its brief passage.
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