How CanAm Began
Klaus J. Lauth, a seasoned engineer actually never set out to start an airline. He simply noticed something curious while living on La Palma:
Millions of North American travellers cross the Atlantic every year, yet the Canary Islands remained surprisingly underserved by direct connections from the United States and Canada.
To an engineer, such gaps can be difficult to ignore.
With a career shaped by large-scale technical projects, infrastructure, automation and commercial analysis, he approached the question in the only way he knew how: calmly, analytically, and perhaps a little too thoroughly.
He began studying aircraft availability, fleet timing, route structures, airport logic, cargo potential, tourism flows and long-haul operating economics. What started as curiosity gradually became a serious framework. Then spreadsheets appeared. Then more spreadsheets. At some point, the project had clearly become real.
Over the following months, CanAm was built piece by piece into a detailed operating model, covering everything from fleet selection and route economics down to onboard catering costs. Revenues could be tested by route, aircraft type, passenger loads, cargo volumes and pricing scenarios.
And the deeper he moved into the details, the more compelling the story became.
The result was unexpectedly clear:
The opportunity was real, the numbers were persuasive, and the main challenges were identifiable and totally manageable.
In short, CanAm was not born in a boardroom. It began with one engineer, one island, one obvious market gap, and the professional inability to stop optimizing things once he had seen it.