Compañía Boliviana de Transporte Aéreo Privado Aerosur, S.A. (shortened and styled AeroSur) was a privately owned airline from Bolivia, which served as the country's flag carrier since 1998, along with state-owned Boliviana de Aviación. Headquartered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, it operated a network of domestic and international scheduled passenger flights with its hub at the city's Viru Viru International Airport. As of 2010, the airline had 1200 employees. History Foundation and background AeroSur was established in April 1992, following the deregulation of the Bolivian airline market, which previously had been controlled by state-owned Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano. Revenue flights on regional routes were commenced on August 24 of that year, using an initial fleet of Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner and British Aerospace 146 aircraft. The airline's first flight was from Santa Cruz to Potosí. Over the following years, larger Boeing 727-200 airliners were acquired, allowing for a growth of network size and passenger numbers. Further expansion in the 21st century During the 2000s AeroSur renewed and expanded its fleet, introducing larger aircraft of the types Boeing 747 and Boeing 757, which made the inauguration of long-haul flights possible. In 2002, President Hugo Banzer declared the airline the flag carrier of the Republic of Bolivia (línea aérea bandera), in that very year AeroSur became the first airline in Bolivia to offer business and first class flights. In 2004, AeroSur had started to operate nostalgic flights with a Douglas C-117 to tourist destinations such as the Salar de Uyuni and Rurrenabaque, both of which are internationally recognized. When Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano went bankrupt in 2007, AeroSur became the largest airline of Bolivia and the only one with intercontinental flights (to Central and North America as well as to Europe). Since 2009, the domestic fleet of ageing Boeing 727s is replaced by more modern, though second-hand purchased Boeing 737 Classic airliners, and looked to start a Peruvian subsidiary, however that project was suspended indefinitely. The subsidiary dubbed AeroSur Paraguay was planned to operate two Boeing 737-200 aircraft of mainline AeroSur. The further development of the project was postponed in mid-2009 pending Paraguayan governmental approval, and later deferred indefinitely. In 2010, AeroSur added five new aircraft to its fleet: three Boeing 737-300s, one Boeing 737-400 and a Boeing 767-200ER. Bankruptcy On March 31, 2012, the airline suspended operations because of unpaid taxes, but resumed all flights on April 6, except for its Madrid route.