Talk About LACSA: Avianca Costa Rica S.A., formerly known as LACSA (Spanish: Lineas Aéreas Costarricenses S.A.), minority owned by the Synergy Group, is the national airline of Costa Rica and is based in San José. It operates international scheduled services to over 35 destinations in Central, North and South America. The airline previously used the TACA/LACSA moniker when it was a subsidiary of Grupo TACA. Since May 2013, following Avianca's purchase of Grupo TACA, Avianca Costa Rica became one of seven nationally branded airlines (Avianca Ecuador, Avianca El Salvador, etc.) operated by Avianca Group of Latin American airlines. LACSA was formed on October 17, 1945, with the help of Pan American World Airways, and started operations on June 1, 1946, using Douglas DC-3s for local services within Costa Rica, operating as an affiliate of Pan Am. The airline was designated as Costa Rica's Flag carrier in 1949, and was nationalized in 1958. LACSA operated the Douglas DC-6B four-engined piston airliner from 1960 until 1976 on their regular passenger, and eventually freight, scheduled flights to Miami International Airport. The airline introduced the first of their BAC One-Eleven twin-engined jet airliners onto their Caribbean passenger route network in April 1967. The airline also operated a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, Cayman Brac Airways (CBA) Ltd., which it sold a 51% controlling interest in the late 1960s to the Cayman Islands government, which in turn used the air carrier to form Cayman Airways. LACSA served Grand Cayman for many years as an intermediate stop on its services between San José, Costa Rica and Miami. Beginning in 1998, TACA/LACSA was one of the member airlines comprising the TACA Airlines alliance along with Aviateca, Nica, Isleña Airlines, and five other regional airlines. In 2008, a new fleet of Embraer 190 jets was introduced.Also in 2008 a new TACA logo was introduced, followed by a new fleet of Embraer 190 airplanes registered in Costa Rica an