The airline was established on 29 April 1987, the founding shareholders being Spanish businessmen and the privately owned airline LTU from Germany. It started operations on 1 November 1987. From 1993 until May 2001, LTU was the sole owner having bought out the other original shareholders. On 24 May 2001, LTU sold the airline to a group of Spanish and Italian businessmen, including the Volare Group. As a result, LTE was rebranded Volar Airlines for two successive years 2003 and 2004. In 2005, the airline was renamed back to LTE International Airways. The airline was wholly owned by Gasarer. From July 2008, Lte operated flights between Norwich and Barcelona, Alicante and Palma de Mallorca, and from Winter 2008-2009 it hoped to fly from Norwich to Tenerife, Las Palmas and Málaga. On 16 October 2008, Lte abruptly announced that it was suspending all flights -both regular and charter- due to the financial situation of the company, which made it difficult to meet the next few days' operational expenses. Only the three aircraft operating for other airlines will be kept pending further decisions. It has subsequently announced a resumption of charter operations from 27 October 2008. On 27 October 2008, Lte announced on their web site they had resumed their charter activities and expected to re-open the on-line bookings, with no other details. It had continued limited ACMI operations on behalf of other carriers until 15 November 2008 when it finally suspended all operations.
At 7 November 2008, the average age of the Lte International Airways fleet was 14.3 years.
Accidents
On 18 May 2005, a Jordanian Airbus A320, registration JY-JAR operating for LTE suffered a braking malfunction on landing at Leeds Bradford Airport in the UK following a flight from Fuerteventura Airport. The aircraft touched down on runway 14 just beyond the touchdown zone, approximately 400 m beyond the aiming point. The pilots determined that the rate of deceleration was inadequate and applied full reverse thrust and full manual braking in an effort to stop the aircraft, however the normal braking system malfunctioned and the Captain turned the aircraft onto a level grassed area to the right of the runway where it came to rest. There were no injuries to the passengers or crew, however the Air Accidents Investigation Branch made seven safety recommendations in the final accident report.
