Boeing 707-120B

On December 20, 1957, the first production Boeing 707 took flight for the first time.

Almost 4,000 miles away in the city of Tegucigalpa, CANAC president Guillermo Márquez was meeting with other executives to discuss a potential order of the revolutionary new aircraft. However, there was one problem: the aircraft was too big for some of the airline's routes. The seating capacity was far greater than the DC-7, and the markets other than the Central America-US routes were too small for the jet. Eventually, it was decided to shelve plans for an order and instead lease aircraft within a few years.

In 1961, Memphis-based Vanguard Airlines and CANAC made an agreement to lease out 3 Boeing 707-120B aircraft for a period of 7 years. The next year, these aircraft were delivered. They primarily served the Central America to United States routes, and provided the first direct flights to New York City from there. As the airline expanded into Guatemala, Costa Rica, Belize and Nicaragua, more flights from their respective cities began flights to America.

The Boeing 707 served with CANAC for several years after. The lease agreement between Vanguard and CANAC was extended until the new Boeing 767 would arrive to the fleet. The 707 was eventually retired in 1976, and Vanguard would sell them to a scrapping company based in CANAC's home airport. However, most of them never saw the cutter's torch and remain at Tegucigalpa in a derelict state.