Through the Defence Ministry, the Ecuadorian Air Force bought two refurbished Boeing 707s for the airline from Israeli Aircraft Industries in a deal worth million. Ecuatoriana also acquired a Douglas DC-10 from Swissair and opened non-stop routes to Canada. Having jet equipment meant that long flights with stopovers were no longer necessary, and non-stop routes were opened all over South America and to other North American cities. Ecuatoriana also opened flights to destinations such as Mexico City and Madrid, Spain. The Quito and Guayaquil to Madrid routes in particular proved extremely competitive, as Iberia was popular among travelers who flew those two routes. During the 1980s, Ecuatoriana de Aviación began conducting business with the European Airbus consortium, buying Airbus A310 jetliners. Ecuatoriana debuted a pair of Airbus A-310s in the early 1990s. Collapse Rumors that government officials flew their family members for free on Ecuatoriana hurt the airline's reputation. During the late 1980s, Ecuatoriana had also developed a reputation for being unreliable. Lengthy flight delays and cancellations were commonplace. Faced with these problems, as well as competition from other carriers such as the privately owned Ecuadorian carrier SAETA, American Airlines (which had assumed Eastern Air Lines' Latin America routes in 1990), and Continental Airlines, which began serving Ecuador from its Houston hub in 1991, Ecuatoriana ceased operations. Affected by the general economic crisis in South America during the 1990s, Ecuatoriana encountered deep financial problems. The airline stopped flying at the end of September 1993. Some of its leased airplanes, two A310s leased directly from Airbus and its single DC-10, were taken back with the latter stranded in Panama since Ecuatoriana was not able to meet the lease payments. Ecuatoriana was forced to rely on competitors TAME and SAETA to fly its North and South American routes, after a deal with Costa Rican LACSA broke down. At the end of 1994, SAETA made a $31 million bid in an attempt to acquire Ecuatoriana, but this didn't go through. After a lengthy privatization process, with the participation of nine consortiums that included ACES, Air France, British Aerospace, Carnival Airlines, Challenge Air Cargo, Continental Airlines, Aerogal and TACA, the consortium led by Brazilian airline VASP (and local investor Juan Eljuri) won the bid through the Guayaquil and Quito stock exchanges, buying 50.1 percent in August 1995 (at $1500 per stock), with a five-year business plan and an effective injection of $10 million during