Airlines - France: Books - History and Aircraft

Air France 1945-1962, l'âge d'or des hélices

At the end of 1944, after the euphoria of the Liberation, the awakening of the French was painful. The country was scarred by five years of Nazi occupation. Rail, road and maritime transport were devastated. The restoration of air links was therefore a priority of the provisional government of the French Republic.

Lacking everything, with an outdated fleet, the French Air Lines Network quickly reestablished, at the end of the war, air links between the major French cities and then between the metropolis and the colonies.

Once peace had returned, Air France took over on January 1 1946. During the summer, it opened its first transatlantic links with American aircraft, DC-4 and Constellation.
Their use, which was only intended to be an exception while waiting for the development of national aircraft, became widespread over the months because national manufacturers were suffering from the difficulties of the post-war period. However, the formidable development of aeronautical technologies during the war announced a promising future for global civil aviation.

Air France will therefore have to take up this challenge: equip itself with modern aircraft adapted to this new era, develop the air network both in France and worldwide, in order to broaden France's influence and establish itself in the skies.

Through this book, Bruno Vielle, looks back at the genesis of this company which is today the flagship of French industry. This aviation enthusiast since his earliest childhood publishes an interesting book that takes us back to the epic of Air France during a crucial period.

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L'Aéropostale: la fabuleuse épopée de Mermoz, Saint-Exupéry, Guillaumet

Aviators or poets, the actors of the Line and the Aéropostale have become models almost in spite of themselves. Because they lived, between heaven and earth, the craziest of adventures, because they triumphed over the African deserts, the South Atlantic and the Andes, and because they elevated their priesthood to the point of sacrifice.

Mermoz, Guillaumet, Saint-Exupéry and so many others remain today perfect examples of courage and will. The adventure is beautiful and edifying. Because it is at once a mechanical epic and a technological conquest, because it demanded from its main actors a thousand and one sacrifices and constantly renewed audacities, because it is, first of all, the most beautiful human story that one could dream of.

Aéropostale never ceases to perpetuate its legend. Between 1918 and 1936, the aerial adventure that made Toulouse the suburb of Santiago de Chile (or vice versa) left its mark beyond imagination.
Beyond the Saharan desert, the South Atlantic and the Andes massif, Pierre-Georges Latécoère and Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont, initiators and fathers of the project, Jean Mermoz, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Henri Guillaumet, Paul Vachet, Marcel Reine and a hundred other heroes and interpreters of the drama, have raised the idea that one can have of courage and obstinacy, generosity and friendship so high that their message retains all its force today.

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Aéropostale - De Saint-Louis du Sénégal au Cap Juby

Emerging technology at the beginning of the 20th century forged exceptional destinies with a powerful scent of adventure like those of Mermoz and Saint-Exupéry, and all their fellow pilots and mechanics. For them to be accomplished, it also required the vision of an extraordinary industrialist.
Pierre-Georges Latécoère, perhaps the most important man in civil aviation, was that man.

And to draw the epic of Aéropostale, between France, Morocco and Senegal, it took the energy of a passionate artist like Vivi Navarro. When her personal story clung to the wings of planes in Saint-Louis, Senegal, she mobilized all her talent to find the traces of the pioneers, give life and colors to the crews and inscribe them here in modernity.
The "mail that must pass at all costs" across seas and mountains does not belong to the sole domain of myth or legend. Let us always demand the impossible.

In collaboration with Lignes aériennes Latécoère.

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Air France 1933-1944, un turbulent décollage

In the spring of 1933, under budgetary constraints of French Air Minister Pierre Cot, the airlines Air Orient, Air Union, CIDNA and Société Générale de Transport Aérien merged to form Air France, also absorbing the famous Aéropostale. Despite a glorious heritage, the aging fleet required urgent modernization to support the company's development.

However, many obstacles stood in Air France's way, including aircraft certification restrictions and the nationalization of aircraft factories. Despite these challenges, the company passed the 100 000 passenger mark in 1938 and expanded its operations around the world.

The Second World War brought Air France's growth to a sudden halt. Despite the German occupation, the company continued to operate in North Africa for the Free French Forces. After the liberation, Air France resumed operations and played a crucial role in rebuilding the French air network.

This book provides a detailed account of this turbulent period for Air France, from its creation in 1933 to its post-war reestablishment in 1944.

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AOM - L'avion comme l'on aimait

Through its text and numerous photos, this book makes you relive the tumultuous life of AOM between joys, hopes and disappointments. From the origins of Minerve and Air Outre Mer in the 1970s, AOM announces promising beginnings in a booming French sky with the opening of lines, a quality service and commercial innovations.

Despite all this, losses continue to accumulate and competition from other European majors accentuates its difficulties. Hope returns, however, with the arrival of the Swiss in the capital of AOM and the formation of the second French air hub. But nothing helps, AOM continues on this downward slope and ends up disappearing in 2001.

Replaced by Jean-Charles Corbet's Air Lib company, the forecasts are rather encouraging but a difficult merger and the arrival in France of a new model of companies, the Low cost, sounded its brutal end in 2003 and the opening of a political-judicial debate on this fiasco.

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