La Costeña is an airline

Airline

An airline provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines lease or own their aircraft with which to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for mutual benefit...

 based in Managua

Managua

Managua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is the largest city in Nicaragua in terms of population and geographic size. Located on the southwestern shore of Lake Xolotlán or Lake Managua, the city was declared the national capital in...

, Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

. It operates passenger services from Managua to eight domestic destinations as part of the Grupo TACA

Grupo TACA

TACA is the trade name "brand" comprising a group of five independently IATA-coded and -owned Central American airlines, whose operations are combined to function as one and a number of other independently owned and IATA-coded regional airlines which code-share and feed the TACA brand system...

 regional system. Its main base is Augusto C. Sandino International Airport, Managua.

History

The airline started operations in November 1999. It has 140 employees (at September 2011).

Destinations

La Costena operates scheduled services to the following domestic destinations: Bluefields

Bluefields

Bluefields is the capital of the municipality of the same name, and of Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur in Nicaragua. It was also capital of the former Zelaya Department, which was divided into North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions...

, Bonanza, Corn Islands

Corn Islands

The Corn Islands are two islands about east off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, constituting one of 12 municipalities of the Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur department...

, Managua, Puerto Cabezas

Puerto Cabezas

Puerto Cabezas is a municipality in, and capital of, the North Atlantic Coast department of Nicaragua....

, Rosita, San Carlos

San Carlos, Río San Juan

San Carlos is the capital city of the municipality of San Carlos and of the Río San Juan Department of Nicaragua. The city proper has a population of roughly 12,174, while the city and surrounding communities contain 37,461 as of 2005. San Carlos is positioned on the confluence of Lake Nicaragua...

, Siuna and Waspam

Waspam

Waspam is a municipality in the Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte department of Nicaragua....

.

Incidents and accidents

• 20 July 1999 Flight 10 - La Costena Cessna 208B Grand Caravan
  Cessna 208
  The Cessna 208 Caravan is a single turboprop engine, fixed-gear short-haul regional airliner and utility aircraft built in the United States by Cessna. The airplane typically seats nine passengers, with a single person crew, although with a FAR Part 23 waiver, it can seat up to fourteen passengers...
  
   (YN-CED), on a flight from Managua to Bluefields, descended prematurely and flew into a remote Cerro Silva hillside, killing all 2 crew and 14 passengers. A GPS
  Global Positioning System
  The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
  
   device had been removed for use in another aircraft before the flight.

Fleet

As of June 2011 the La Costena fleet includes :

• 1 Fokker 50
• 4 ATR 42
  ATR 42
  -Civil operators:The largest operators of the ATR-42 are FedEx Express, Airlinair, TRIP Linhas Aéreas,and Mexico City-based Aeromar respectively. Number of aircraft as of 2010:Some 70 other airlines operate smaller numbers of the type....
  
  
• 5 Cessna Caravan 675
  Cessna 208
  The Cessna 208 Caravan is a single turboprop engine, fixed-gear short-haul regional airliner and utility aircraft built in the United States by Cessna. The airplane typically seats nine passengers, with a single person crew, although with a FAR Part 23 waiver, it can seat up to fourteen passengers...
  
  
• 1 Shorts SD360 (Will be replaced by Fokker 50
• 2ATR 72
  ATR 72
  The ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop short-haul regional airliner built by the French-Italian aircraft manufacturer ATR. ATR and Airbus are both built in Toulouse, and share resources and technology...