Air France (French pronunciation: [ɛːʁ fʁɑ̃s]; legally Société Air France, S.A.), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and is one of the founding members of the SkyTeam airline alliance. As of 2013, Air France served 29 destinations in France and operates worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to 201 destinations in 78 countries (93 including overseas departments and territories of France) and also carried 46,803,000 passengers in 2019. The airline maintains its global and domestic hub at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Air France's corporate headquarters, previously in Montparnasse, Paris, are located at the Roissypôle complex on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris.
Tracing its origins back to the 1910s, Air France was formed on 30 August 1933 through the merger of five existing airlines in France. During the Cold War, from 1950 until 1990, it was one of the three main Allied scheduled airlines operating in Germany at West Berlin's Tempelhof and Tegel airports. In 1990, it acquired the operations of French domestic carrier Air Inter and international rival UTA – Union de Transports Aériens. It merged with KLM to form Air France–KLM in 2003.
In 2018, Air France and its regional subsidiary Hop carried 51.4 million passengers. Air France operates a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing wide-body jets on long-haul routes, and uses Airbus A320 family narrow-body aircraft on short-haul routes. Air France introduced the Airbus A380 on 20 November 2009 with service from Paris to New York. Air France Hop (formerly HOP!) operates the majority of its regional domestic and European scheduled services with a fleet of regional jet aircraft.
The predecessor companies of Air France date back to Compagnie générale transaérienne (CGT), established in 1909, which flew the world's first scheduled passenger-carrying fixed-wing flights within France in 1913. Air France was formed on 30 August 1933 as a merger of five existing airlines: Compagnie Générale Aéropostale, which was founded in 1918 as Société des lignes Latécoère and, in some sources, the earliest lineage of Air France is stated to be 1918; Société Générale des Transports Aériens (SGTA), which was founded in 1919; Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne (CIDNA), which was founded in 1920; Air Union, which was founded in 1923 and formed from the merger of Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes (CMA), which absorbed CGT, and Grands Express Aériens; and Air Orient, which was founded in 1929. SGTA was the first commercial passenger airline company in France; founded as Lignes Aériennes Farman in 1919, it began a weekly service between Paris and Brussels on 22 March 1919, the world's first international commercial aviation service. Société des lignes Latécoère began airmail services in 1924. These airlines built extensive networks across Europe, to French colonies in North Africa and farther afield prior to their merger into Air France in 1933.
In 1936, Air France added French-built twin engine Potez 62 aircraft to its fleet featuring a two-compartment cabin that could accommodate 14 to 16 passengers. A high-wing monoplane, it had a wooden fuselage with composite coating while the wings were fabric-covered with a metal leading edge. Equipped with Hispano-Suiza V-engines, they were used on routes in Europe, South America and the Far East. Although cruising at only 280 km/h (175 mph), the Potez 62 was a robust and reliable workhorse for Air France and remained in service until the Second World War with one used by the Free French Air Force.
During World War II, Air France moved its operations to Casablanca, Morocco. On 26 June 1945, all of France's air transport companies were nationalised. On 29 December 1945, a decree of the French Government granted Air France the management of the entire French air transport network. Air France recruited its first female flight attendants in 1946. The same year the airline opened its first air terminal at Les Invalides in central Paris. It was linked to Paris Le Bourget Airport, Air France's first operations and engineering base, by coach. At that time the network covered 160,000 km, claimed to be the longest in the world. Société Nationale Air France was set up on 1 January 1946.
European schedules were initially operated by a fleet of Douglas DC-3 aircraft. On 1 July 1946, Air France started direct flights between Paris and New York via refuelling stops at Shannon and Gander. Douglas DC-4 piston-engine airliners covered the route in just under 20 hours. In September 1947, Air France's network stretched east from New York, Fort de France and Buenos Aires to Shanghai.
By 1948, Air France operated 130 aircraft, one of the largest fleets in the world. Between 1947 and 1965, the airline operated Lockheed Constellations on passenger and cargo services worldwide. In 1946 and 1948, respectively, the French government authorised the creation of two private airlines: Transports Aériens Internationaux – later Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux – (TAI) and SATI. In 1949, the latter became part of Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT), a private French international airline.
Compagnie Nationale Air France was created by act of parliament on 16 June 1948. Initially, the government held 70%. In subsequent years, the French state's direct and indirect shareholdings reached almost 100%. In mid 2002, the state held 54%.
On 4 August 1948, Max Hymans was appointed the president. During his 13-year tenure he would implement modernisation practices centred on the introduction of jet aircraft. In 1949, the company became a co-founder of Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA), an airline telecommunications services company.
In 1952, Air France moved its operations and engineering base to the new Orly Airport South terminal. By then the network covered 250,000 km. Air France entered the jet age in August 1953, flying the original, short-lived de Havilland Comet series 1A Paris-Rome-Beirut.
In the mid 1950s, it also operated the Vickers Viscount turboprop, with twelve entering service between May 1953 and August 1954 on the European routes. On 26 September 1953, the government instructed Air France to share long-distance routes with new private airlines. This was followed by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport's imposition of an accord on Air France, Aigle Azur, TAI and UAT, under which some routes to Africa, Asia and the Pacific region were transferred to private carriers.
On 23 February 1960, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport transferred Air France's domestic monopoly to Air Inter. To compensate for the loss of its domestic network Air France was given a stake in Air Inter. The following day Air France was instructed to share African routes with Air Afrique and UAT.
The airline started uninterrupted jet operations in 1960 with the Sud Aviation Caravelle and the Boeing 707; jet airliners cut travel times in half and improved comfort. Air France later became an early Boeing 747 operator and eventually had one of the world's largest Boeing 747 fleets.
On 1 February 1963, the government formalised division of routes between Air France and its private sector rivals. Air France was to withdraw services to West Africa (except Senegal), Central Africa (except Burundi and Rwanda), Southern Africa (including South Africa), Libya in North Africa, Bahrain and Oman in the Middle East, Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) in South Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand as well as New Caledonia and Tahiti. These routes were allocated to the new Union de Transports Aériens (UTA), a new private airline resulting from the merger of TAI and UAT. UTA also got exclusive rights between Japan, New Caledonia and New Zealand, South Africa and Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, as well as Los Angeles and Tahiti.
In 1974, Air France began shifting the bulk of operations to the new Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris. By the early 1980s, only Corsica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, most services to French Guiana, Réunion, the Maghreb region, Eastern Europe (except the USSR), Southern Europe (except Greece and Italy), and one daily service to New York (JFK) remained at Orly. In 1974, Air France also became the world's first operator of the Airbus A300 twin-engine widebody plane, Airbus Industrie's first commercial airliner for which it was a launch customer.