Federico Bloch, 50; Led Central America’s Largest Airline

Federico Bloch, longtime chief executive of Grupo Taca, Central America’s largest air carrier, has died. He was 50.

Bloch was found shot to death in a roadside attack on the outskirts of San Salvador on April 26. He was found in his car and had been shot in the head and chest, police said. A motive for the killing had not been established, police said, and no arrests had been made.

Bloch headed Grupo Taca for 25 years and built the small Salvadoran airline into Latin America’s third-largest carrier. He resigned as chief executive just 10 days before his death, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

A native of El Salvador, Bloch was the son of a doctor. He attended college in the United States, earning an engineering degree at Stanford University and an MBA at Harvard Business School.

He returned to El Salvador in 1979 and went to work for Taca, then a small carrier with only a handful of aircraft. Bloch rose from a position in the finance department to executive vice president and then chief executive.

With Roberto Krieste, the son of Taca’s owner, he began a program to repurchase the company’s publicly held stock in a bid to reestablish majority ownership. He also persuaded the airline’s mostly Salvadoran owners to invest in other regional carriers. By the 1990s, Taca had either invested in or launched carriers in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Grupo Taca now flies to more than 40 cities and 19 countries.

An innovative businessman, Bloch forged an alliance with American Airlines for expanding its North American operations.

Bloch is survived by his wife, Jackie, and several children.