Sociedad Aeronáutica de Medellín (SAM) was a Colombian airline with its main hub at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport (BOG). As a subsidiary of the Colombian national flag carrier Avianca, SAM operated both domestic and international flights.

During the early 1940s, a group of Colombian businessmen decided that the city of Medellin needed an airline to help connect it with the rest of the nation. In October 1945, at the Notary Publics Office, a deed was recorded announcing the incorporation of the Sociedad Aeronáutica de Medellín S.A.

SAM starts life as a cargo airline

The airlines founders Luis Coulson, Gilberto Escobar, Julián Restrepo, Joaquín Londoño, and Gustavo Correa, immediately set about bringing their idea of an airline for for Medellín to fruition. The group launched a corporation with 15,000 shares valued at ten pesos each. The board purchased ten thousand of the shares, and the remaining 5,000 were sold to the public.

In the beginning, the idea was to purchase small aircraft for solely domestic flights, but the concept started to get larger as time went by. From wanting to provide a domestic cargo service, the idea grew into purchasing larger long-range aircraft so that the airline could secure cargo contracts between Colombia and Miami.

In October 1946, SAM's first Douglas C-47 departed Medellín for Miami amid a colossal celebration. SAM started what it had initially planned to do during its second year of operations by introducing domestic cargo flights from Medellín to Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Planeta Rica, and Barranquilla. The airline multiplied, and by 1950 the airline had 18 cargo aircraft and offered flights to the Caribbean and other parts of South America.

SAM began passenger flights in 1958

Having proved itself in transporting air freight in 1958, SAM decided to begin offering passenger flights to the public. Passenger service commenced using a DC-3 and C-46, with Sam becoming the first airline to offer flights to the Colombian Caribbean island of San Andres.

Two years later, a 65-passenger Douglas DC-4 was added to the fleet as SAM grew. In 1970 SAM became notable as being the first airline to introduce turboprops to Colombia. By purchasing a Lockheed L-188, SAM was now able to expand into Central America with passenger flights to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.

By the 1970s, SAM had modernized its fleet with de Havilland Canada Twin Otters, Avro RJ100s, and Boeing 727s. With these new aircraft, SAM cemented its domestic and regional destinations. A glitch came about when SAM had problems with the engines of its RJ100 engines forcing the airline to use Avianca planes to cover its flights. The RJ100s were returned to British Aerospace in March 2000 while at the same time purchasing three Cessna 208 Caravans.

SAM is merged into Avianca

In 2003 Avianca was sold to the Synergy Group, which wanted to change the airline's image by SAM's livery from Avianca planes. At the same time, Avianca ordered 15 Fokker 100s that SAM would operate using Avianca livery with SAM written on the fuselage. In 2010 SAM was merged into Avianca, with its final flight departing Bogotá bound for Medellín.