After the Marquess of Comillas's death in 1883, his fourth son, Don Claudio López Bru, took charge of the company.

They tried to break the blockade that the United States imposed on Cuba and the Philippines, the last great colonies of the Spanish crown, but were mostly unsuccessful.

It began to renew its fleet with two new technologically advanced sister ships launched in 1912: Reina Victoria-Eugenia from England and Infanta Isabel de Borbon from Scotland.

In 1917 a mine sank the CTE liner Carlos de Eizaguirre off Robben Island, killing 134 people.

The Spanish Republican Navy requisitioned some CTE ships and used them to evacuate refugees from coastal cities besieged by the Nationalist armies.

One of the last luxury ocean-liners of the company was ship Virginia de Churruca, sold to Trasmediterránea which used it for ferry services to the Balearic Islands.

In 1978 a non-functional Compañía Transatlántica Española was integrated into the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI), a Spanish state entity that absorbed failed companies in order to service debt, among other purposes.

In its last days CTE was not even a shadow of the transoceanic shipping company it was in its heyday, when its luxury passenger liners cruised the World's oceans.

Following the strengthening of the Euro currency between 2005 and 2006, as well as higher fuel costs, CTE found it increasingly difficult to service the debts to its creditors.