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Founded 1933
Air France (formally Société Air France, S.A.), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, (north of Paris). It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance. As of 2013 Air France serves 36 destinations in France and operates worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to 168 destinations in 93 countries (including Overseas departments and territories of France) and also carried 59,513,000 passengers in 2011. The airline's global hub is at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, with Paris Orly Airport, Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport, Marseille Provence Airport, Toulouse Blagnac Airport, and Nice Côte d'Azur Airport serving as secondary hubs. Air France's corporate headquarters, previously in Montparnasse, Paris,[4] are located on the grounds of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris.
Air France was formed on 7 October 1933 from a merger of Air Orient, Air Union, Compagnie Générale Aéropostale, Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne (CIDNA), and Société Générale de Transport Aérien (SGTA).
During the Cold War, from 1950 until 1990, Air France was one of the three main Allied scheduled airlines operating in Germany at West Berlin's Tempelhof and Tegel airports.
In 1990, Air France acquired the operations of French domestic carrier Air Inter and international rival UTA – Union de Transports Aériens.
Air France served as France's primary national flag carrier for seven decades prior to its 2003 merger with KLM.
Between April 2001 and March 2002, the airline carried 43.3 million passengers and had a total revenue of €12.53bn. In November 2004, Air France ranked as the largest European airline with 25.5% total market share, and was the largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenue.
Air France operates a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing widebody jets on long-haul routes, and uses Airbus A320 family aircraft on short-haul routes. Air France introduced the A380 on 20 November 2009 with service to New York's JFK Airport from Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. The carrier's regional airline subsidiary, HOP!, operates the majority of its regional domestic and European scheduled services with a fleet of regional jet aircraft.
The inauguration of the Aérogare des Invalides on 21 August 1951
Air France was formed on 7 October 1933, from a merger of Air Orient, Air Union, Compagnie Générale Aéropostale, Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne (CIDNA) and Société Générale des Transports Aériens (SGTA). Of these airlines, SGTA was the first commercial airline company in France, having been founded as Lignes Aériennes Farman in 1919. The constituent members of Air France had already built extensive networks across Europe, to French colonies in North Africa and farther afield. 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 appointed its first 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.[9] 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 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.
Jet age reorganisation
Passengers disembarking from a Sud-Est SE-161
In 1952 Air France moved its operations and engineering base to the new Paris Orly Airport South terminal. By then the network covered 250,000 km. Air France entered the jet age in 1953 with the original, short-lived de Havilland Comet series 1, the world's first jetliner.
During 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 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.
From 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 Guyana, 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.
Concorde service and rivalry
On 21 January 1976, Air France operated its inaugural supersonic transport (SST) service on the Paris (Charles de Gaulle) to Rio (via Dakar) route with Anglo-French BAC-Aérospatiale Concorde F-BVFA. Supersonic services from Paris (CDG) to Washington Dulles International Airport began on 24 May 1976, also with F-BVFA. Service to New York (JFK) – the only remaining Concorde service until its end – commenced on 22 November 1977. Paris to New York was flown in 3 hours 23 minutes, at about twice the speed of sound. Approval for flights to the United States was initially withheld due to noise protests. Eventually, services to Mexico City via Washington, D.C. were started. Air France became one of only two airlines – British Airways being the other – to regularly operate supersonic services, and continued daily transatlantic Concorde service until late May 2003.
By 1983, Air France's golden jubilee, the workforce numbered more than 34,000, its fleet about 100 jet aircraft (including 33 Boeing 747s) and its 634,400 km network served 150 destinations in 73 countries. This made Air France the fourth-largest scheduled passenger airline in the world, as well as the second-largest scheduled freight carrier. Air France also codeshared with regional French airlines, TAT being the most prominent. TAT would later operate several regional international routes on behalf of Air France. In 1983 Air France began passenger flights to South Korea, being the first European airline to do so.
In 1986 the government relaxed its policy of dividing traffic rights for scheduled services between Air France, Air Inter and UTA, without route overlaps between them. The decision opened some of Air France's most lucrative routes on which it had enjoyed a government-sanctioned monopoly since 1963 and which were within its exclusive sphere of influence, to rival airlines, notably UTA. The changes enabled UTA to launch scheduled services to new destinations within Air France's sphere, in competition with that airline.
Air France operated 33 Boeing 747s by 1983. Here, a 747–100 is seen at CDG Airport in 1978.
Paris-San Francisco became the first route UTA served in competition with Air France non-stop from Paris. Air France responded by extending some non-stop Paris-Los Angeles services to Papeete, Tahiti, which competed with UTA on Los Angeles-Papeete. UTA's ability to secure traffic rights outside its traditional sphere in competition with Air France was the result of a campaign to lobby the government to enable it to grow faster, becoming more dynamic and more profitable. This infuriated Air France.
In 1987 Air France together with Lufthansa, Iberia and SAS founded Amadeus, an IT company (also known as a GDS) that would enable travel agencies to sell the founders and other airlines' products from a single system.
In 1988, Air France was a launch customer for the fly-by-wire (FBW) A320 narrowbody twin, along with Air Inter and British Caledonian. It became the first airline to take delivery of the A320 in March 1988, and along with Air Inter became the first airlines to introduce Airbus A320 service on short-haul routes.
Dassault Mercure of Air Inter which became part of Air France in 1990
On 12 January 1990, the operations of government-owned Air France, semi-public Air Inter and wholly private Union de Transports Aériens (UTA) were merged into an enlarged Air France. Air France's acquisition of UTA and Air Inter was part of an early 1990s government plan to create a unified, national air carrier with the economies of scale and global reach to counter potential threats from the liberalisation of the EU's internal air transport market.
On 25 July 1994, a new holding company, Groupe Air France, was set up by decree. Groupe Air France became operational on 1 September 1994. It acquired the Air France group's majority shareholdings in Air France and Air Inter (subsequently renamed Air Inter Europe). On 31 August 1994, Stephen Wolf, a former United Airlines CEO, was appointed adviser to the Air France group's chairman Christian Blanc. Wolf was credited with the introduction of Air France's hub and spoke operation at Paris Charles de Gaulle. (Wolf resigned in 1996 to take over as CEO at US Airways.)
In 1997, Air France Europe was absorbed into Air France. On 19 February 1999, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's Plural Left government approved the Air France's partial privatisation. Its shares were listed on the Paris stock exchange on 22 February 1999. In June 1999, Air France and Delta Air Lines formed a bilateral transatlantic partnership. On 22 June 2000, this expanded into the SkyTeam global airline alliance.
The merger of Air France and KLM occurred in 2004
On 30 September 2003, Air France and Netherlands-based KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced the merger of the two airlines, the new company to be known as Air France-KLM. The merger became reality on 5 May 2004. At that point former Air France shareholders owned 81% of the new firm (44% owned by the French state, 37% by private shareholders), former KLM shareholders the rest. The decision of the Jean-Pierre Raffarin government to reduce the French state's shareholding in the former Air France group from 54.4% to 44% of the newly created Air France-KLM Group effectively privatised the new airline. In December 2004 the state sold 18.4% of its equity in Air France-KLM. The state's shareholding in Air France-KLM subsequently fell to just under 20%.
Air France-KLM became the largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenues, and third-largest (largest in Europe) in passenger kilometres. Although owned by a single company, Air France and KLM continued to fly under their own brand names. Air France-KLM remained part of the SkyTeam alliance, which then included Aeroflot, Delta Air Lines, Aeroméxico, Korean Air, Czech Airlines, Alitalia, Northwest Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Air Europa, Continental Airlines, and Saudi Arabian Airlines. As of March 2004, Air France employed 71,654 people. As of March 2007, the airline employed 102,422 personnel.
According to Air France-KLM, the company's principal activities became:
Passenger transport: first European airline with 25.5% of market share (November 2004) and largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenue.
Freight transport: largest company for international freight transportation without integration. With integration, Air France-KLM is third worldwide behind FedEx Express and UPS Airlines.
Airplane maintenance and repair: largest multi-services operator.
Open skies venture
On 17 October 2007, the creation of a profit and revenue-sharing transatlantic joint venture between Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines was announced during a press conference at Air France-KLM's headquarters. The venture became effective on 29 March 2008. It aimed to exploit transatlantic opportunities to capture a major share of long-haul business traffic from London Heathrow Airport, which opened to unrestricted competition on that day as a result of the "Open Skies" pact between the EU and USA. It was envisaged that Air France and Delta would begin nine daily round trips between London-Heathrow and destinations in the USA, including a daily London (Heathrow) to Los Angeles service by Air France. Once the new Air France-Delta venture received antitrust immunity, it was to be extended to the other two transatlantic SkyTeam partners, enabling all four partners to codeshare flights as well as to share revenue and profit. The new transatlantic joint venture marks the Air France-KLM Group's second major expansion in the London market, following the launch of CityJet-operated short-haul services from London City Airport that have been aimed at business travellers in the City's financial services industry. However, the daily London (Heathrow) to Los Angeles service was not as successful as hoped, and was discontinued in November 2008.
Recent developments
On 12 January 2012, Air France-KLM announced their three-year transformation plan, called Transform 2015, to restore profitability. This plan works by restoring competitiveness through cost-cutting, restructuring the short- and medium-haul operations and rapidly reducing debt. The main objective of this plan is to turn Air France-KLM back into a world player by 2015. Air France has been losing 700 million euros a year. As the financial results of recent quarters demonstrate, the long-haul operations, also subject to increasing competition, cannot alone offset these losses.
On 22 February 2012, Air France released their plan for summer schedule. Because of the uncertain economic environment, Air France-KLM has set a limit of 1.4% maximum increase in capacity from 25 March 2012 – 28 October 2012.
On 21 June 2012, Air France-KLM had announced its decision to cut just under 10% of the total 53,000 workforce (about 5,000 jobs) by the end of next year in an attempt to restore profitability by 1,700 jobs natural turnover and the rest by voluntary redundancies, so hopefully no compulsory redundancies.
At the beginning of July 2012, it was announced that Air France-KLM found partners for the new African start-up airline Air Cemac, which was co-founded by six countries in Central Africa to replace the former Air Afrique. But several problems and two partners, who decided to back out, delayed the implementation of the project. Following its launch, Air Cemac announced it would commence operations in 2013.
As of August 2012, the Transform 2015 plan was accepted by ground staff and pilot unions but rejected by cabin crew unions.
In September 2013, Air France introduced a brand new Economy product along with an improved Premium Economy seat and service. It is expected that the new improvements would be fitted on aircraft from June 2014 onwards.
In October 2013, Air France-KLM announced they were writing off the 25% stake in Alitalia, as it was hesitant the struggling carrier would obtain the 300 million euros in financing. The group has denied Alitalia of additional funds as it is currently struggling to restructure itself to profitability with the Transform 2015 plan.
In December 2013, Air France announced that Cityjet no longer meets the short haul needs of the group and is in the process of closing a deal with German firm Intro Aviation by the end of Q1 of 2014.
On 4 February 2014, the new Business product was unveiled, featuring a fully flat bed from Zodiac Aerospace. The seat will be fitted on Boeing 777 aircraft from June 2014 onwards.
In September 2014, Air France announced it would sell a 3 percent stake in travel technology company Amadeus IT Group for a fee of $438 million.
Flying monkeys to laboratories
PETA has criticized Air France for being what it calls “the only major airline in the world that still transports primates destined for experiments.” Trough ads, protests and e-mails, phone calls and social media postings from supporters, PETA says it forced Air France to cancel a shipment of monkeys from Mauritius to Washington in 2012. PETA says animals suffer in laboratories where they’re “caged, poisoned, cut into and killed." Dr. Jane Goodall, Peter Gabriel, James Cromwell and others have criticized Air France’s monkey shipments. Air France has said the transport of monkeys to laboratories is legal and that they stand by the practice. In a statement released to the press, the Airline explained, "Primates travel to private research laboratories as well as public research laboratories. This highly supervised activity is paramount in the development of research and medicine in France and Europe. As such, Air France management has received numerous letters of support from various public or private research institutes." The European Animal Research Association and other organizations in support of animal research have expressed support for Air France.
Corporate affairs and identity
Head office
Head office of Air France in Roissypôle, Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, Tremblay-en-France
Air France's head office is located in the Roissypôle complex on the grounds of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport and in the commune of Tremblay-en-France, Seine-Saint-Denis, near the city of Paris. Wil S. Hylton of The New York Times described the facility as "a huge white box that squats near the runways at Charles de Gaulle Airport."
The 130,000 square metres (1,400,000 sq ft) complex was completed in December 1995. The French firm Groupement d'Etudes et de Méthodes d'Ordonnancement (GEMO) managed the project. The architect was Valode & Pistre and the design consultants were Sechaud-Boyssut and Trouvin. The project cost 137,000,000 euros (less than 700 million francs). The runways of the airport are visible from the building. The Air France Operations Control Centre (OCC, French: Centre de Contrôle des Opérations, CCO), which coordinates Air France flights worldwide, is situated at the AF head office.
For about 30 years prior to December 1995, Air France's headquarters were located in a tower adjacent to the Gare Montparnasse rail station in the Montparnasse area and the 15th arrondissement of Paris. By 1991 two bids for the purchase of the Square Max Hymans building had been made. By 1992 the complex was sold to MGEN for 1.6 billion francs. By that year Air France had planned to move its head office to Roissypôle, taking 50,000 square metres (540,000 sq ft) of space inside the hotel, office, and shopping complex on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport. After Air France moved to Tremblay-en-France, the ownership of the former head office complex was transferred.
On a previous occasion the head office was at 2 rue marbeuf in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
Foreign offices
Air France's United States offices are in the 125 West 55th Street building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.[58] Air France first signed a lease to occupy the building in 1991. The site also formerly housed the New York City city ticket office for Air France.
Air France-KLM's head office for United Kingdom and Ireland operations, which includes facilities for Air France and KLM, is located in Plesman House in Hatton Cross. The facility's inauguration was on 6 July 2006. Air France moved the office from Hounslow to Hatton.
Crew base
Air France Cité PN, located at Charles de Gaulle Airport, acts as the airline's crew base. The building, developed by Valode & Pistre, opened in February 2006. The first phase consisted of 33,400 square metres (360,000 sq ft) of space and 4,300 parking spaces. The building is connected to the Air France head office.