Spantax was a Spanish airline that operated from 1959 to 1988. Based at the Canary Islands, it was founded on October 6, 1959 as “Spanish Air Taxi.” Tourist flights to the Canary Islands and the Spanish Sahara, as well as the transporting of cargo and personnel to the oil-fields at Laâyoune (El Aaiún), helped its expansion. In 1963, the company, renamed as Spantax S.A., grew as it began to schedule transatlantic charter flights, and expanded its fleet. On December 3, 1972, a Coronado 990 belonging to the Spantax fleet was involved in a plane crash at the airport of Los Rodeos, later the location of the Tenerife disaster (1977). In the 1980s, plagued by financial troubles and labor strikes, Spantax was sold to the Aviation Finance Group, based in Luxembourg. Attempts to revamp and refinance the service and negotiations with China Airlines for the further expansion of the fleet were unsuccessful; Spantax collapsed on March 29, 1988.