Civil Aviation in a peripheral context. The commercial aviation project between ?national air power? and business (Argentina, 1945-1970).

PIGLIA, MELINA

sANTA mARÍA, aZORES

Conferencia; International Conference Aviation: The Impact on Time and Space; 2017

LPAZ Forum- Universidad de Azores

For the military that governed in Argentina in the 1940s, the strengthening of "national air power" was a central aspect of defending sovereignty in the Post-war order, and commercial aviation was one its cornerstones: they established national sovereignty over Argentine airspace, and reserved domestic air routes for State or State-private owned companies. By the end of 1949, existing Argentine airlines were nationalized and assembled in a single airline: Aerolineas Argentinas, that monopolized domestic flights until 1956 (and later on, controlled about 80% of the market) and was Argentina's flag airline.This paper aims to analyze the first two decades of Aerolineas Argentinas, a period that involves a process of accelerated technological change as well as of global standardization of procedures and tariffs, but also decades of acute political convulsions in Argentina and in Latin America.Studying this period helps illuminate a central tension, constitutive of the company from its origins: the one between a political logic (which saw the company as capable of enhancing national cohesion, "air power" and economic development), on a one hand, and a business logic that required "efficiency" and profitability, on the other.