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Aéropostale (formally, Compagnie générale aéropostale) was a pioneering aviation company which operated from 1918 to 1933. It was founded in 1918 in Toulouse, France, as Société des lignes Latécoère, also known as Lignes aeriennes Latécoère or simply "The Line" (La ligne).

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Compagnie générale aéropostale

IATA ICAO Callsign N/A N/A N/A
Founded	1918, France
Commenced operations	1918, France
Ceased operations	October 7, 1933 (1933-10-07)
Operating bases	Toulouse-Montaudran Airport (Toulouse – Lasbordes Airport) Toulouse, France
Destinations	Barcelona, Dakar, Casablanca
Headquarters	Toulouse, France
Key people	Pierre-Georges Latécoère

History

Aéropostale founder Pierre-Georges Latécoère envisioned an air route connecting France to the French colonies in Africa and South America. The company's activities were to specialise in, but were by no means restricted to, airborne postal services.

Between 1921 and 1927 the "Line" operated as Compagnie générale d'entreprises aéronautiques (CGEA). In April 1927 Latécoère, having troubles with its planes, damaged due to long flights to South America, decided to sell 93% of his business to another Brazilian-based French businessman named Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont. On that basis Bouilloux-Lafont then founded the Compagnie générale aéropostale, better known by the shorter name Aéropostale.

On December 25, 1918, the company began serving its first route between Toulouse and Barcelona in Spain. In February 1919 the line was extended to Casablanca. By 1925 it extended to Dakar, where the mail was shipped by steamer to South America. In November 1927 regular flights between Rio de Janeiro and Natal were started.[1] Expansion then continued to Paraguay and in July 1929 a regularly scheduled route across the Andes Mountains to Santiago, Chile, was started, later extending down to Tierra del Fuego on the southern part of Chile. Finally, on May 12–13, 1930, the trip across the South Atlantic by air finally took place: a Latécoère 28 mail plane fitted with floats and a 650 horsepower (480 kW) Hispano-Suiza engine made the first nonstop flight. Aeropostale pilot Jean Mermoz flew 3,058 kilometres (1,900 mi) from Dakar to Natal in 19 hours, 35 minutes, with his plane holding 122 kilograms (269 lb) of mail.

After a scandal[2] in which postal payments from the French government were misused by Aeropostale, the company was dissolved in 1932 and merged with a number of other aviation companies (Air Orient, Société Générale de Transport Aérien, Air Union, and Compagnie Internationale de Navigation) to create Air France.

Aéropostale pilots

Developed in the aftermath of World War I, air mail service owed much to the bravery of its earliest pilots. During the 1920s, every flight was a dangerous adventure, and sometimes fatal. The period was eloquently described by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – himself an Aéropostale pilot – in his novel Vol de Nuit ("Night Flight"), in which he describes a postal flight through the skies of South America.

Aéropostale's roster of pilots included such aviation legends as:

• Jean Mermoz
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Henri Guillaumet
• Marcel Reine
• Emile Lécrivain
• Pierre Deley
• Henri Larrieu (1893 – 1974)
• Raymond Vanier

Aircraft

Among the aircraft operated by the company were:

• Blériot 5190
• One hundred Breguet 14s
• Farman F.70, for passenger and mail routes between Casablanca and Dakar and also from Algiers to Biskra.
• Latécoère 26
• Latécoère 28

Film

• Night Flight (1933 film), a 1933 film starring Clark Gable, was based on the novel by Antoine de Saint Exupéry, which recounted his real life experiences when he managed and flew for the Aeroposta Argentina subsidiary in South America.[3] In the movie the airline was given the fictitious name Trans-Andean European Air Mail.
• In 1995, Futuroscope paid homage to Aéropostale pilot Henri Guillaumet with a 3D IMAX film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, in Wings of Courage (les Ailes du Courage), chronicling the pilot's crash on the frozen lake surface of Laguna del Diamante in the Andes, while flying mail for the South American subsidiary, Aeroposta Argentina.[4] Guillaumet was portrayed by Craig Sheffer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry by Tom Hulce, and Jean Mermoz played by Val Kilmer.

See also

• Aéropostale, a U.S. apparel outlet that took its name and some of its design cues from the Compagnie générale aéropostale.
• Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela, normally referred to as just Aeropostal, an airline in Venezuela, established after the government took over air routes previously operated by the French Aéropostale
• Aeroposta Argentina, a subsidiary in Argentina.

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Mary, Jack. "Aéropostale, les autres lignes: Algérie, Paraguay, Patagonie, Bolivie, Venezuela", 2012, ISBN 978-2-7089-9238-2
• Binder, Yves Marc & Sophie. "Aéropostale, les carnets de vol de Léopold", 2009, ISBN 978-2-7089-9222-1
• de Bure, Guillemette. "Les secrets de l’Aéropostale: Les années Bouilloux-Lafont 1926-1944", 2007, ISBN 2708992104
• Daurat, Didier. "Dans le vent des hélices, témoignage du mythique directeur de la Ligne", passé à la postérité sous le nom de Rivière dans les pages de Vol de nuit
• Fleury, Jean-Gérard. "La Ligne", ouvrage de référence sur l'Aéropostale rédigé par un journaliste passionné d'aviation et collaborateur de l'industriel René Couzinet
• Hanson, Patricia King (Executive Editor) and Alan Gevinson (Associate Editor). The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: 1931-40, Feature Films. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-52007-908-3.
• Mermoz, Jean Mes Vols (Flammarion, 1937), regroupement posthume de textes du pilote et d'hommages de ses collègues, amis et admirateurs
• Poivre d'Arvor, Patrick et Olivier. "Courriers de nuit", Place des Victoires, 2003, Mengès, 2004 ; LGF Le Livre de Poche, 2006 (version texte seulement)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aéropostale.

• Latecoere and "the Line"
• Timetables

На других языках

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- [en] Aéropostale (aviation)

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[fr] Compagnie générale aéropostale

La Compagnie générale aéropostale (généralement connue comme simplement « l'Aéropostale ») est une compagnie aérienne française basée à Toulouse-Montaudran. D'abord sous le nom de Société des lignes Latecoere en 1918, l'idée d'une ligne aérienne transatlantique consacrée au service postal mais aussi au transport de passagers, rêvée par Pierre-Georges Latécoère, se réalise au fil des années 1920 sous l'impulsion de Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont, repreneur de « la Ligne » sous le nom de Compagnie générale aéropostale en 1927. À la suite de difficultés financières, la compagnie est mise en liquidation judiciaire en 1931 et ses actifs sont repris par l'État français en 1933 au sein d'un nouvel ensemble, la SCELA (Société centrale pour l'exploitation des lignes aériennes) qui sera renommé Air France quelques jours plus tard.

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[it] Aéropostale

L'Aéropostale (formalmente Compagnie générale aéropostale) è stata una compagnia aerea francese, è stata attiva dal 1927 al 1933 quando è stata fusa con altre compagnie francesi per formare l'Air France. In principio conosciuta con il nome di Société des lignes Latécoère nel 1918, poi di Compagnie générale d'entreprises aéronautiques (1921-1927), l'idea di una linea aerea transatlantica consacrata al servizio postale ma anche al trasporto di passeggeri, immaginata da Pierre-Georges Latécoère, si realizza progressivamente negli anni venti sotto la spinta di Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont, che aveva rilevato « la Ligne » con il nome Compagnie générale aéropostale nel 1927. A seguito di problemi finanziari, la compagnia è posta in liquidazione giudiziaria nel 1931 e le sue attività furono riprese dallo Stato francese nel 1933 e confluirono all'interno di una nuova società chiamata Air France.

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[ru] Aéropostale

«Аэропосталь» (фр. Aéropostale, полное название — Compagnie Générale Aéropostale) — французская авиакомпания, созданная в 1918 году в Тулузе, осуществлявшая международные авиапочтовые перевозки на дальние расстояния и первоначально имевшая название «Ассоциация линий Латекоэра» (Société des lignes Latécoère). В 1927 году была переименована в «Аэропосталь». Основатель компании — Пьер-Жорж Латекоэр (1883—1943). Среди известных лётчиков этой компании были Антуан де Сент-Экзюпери и Жан Мермоз.

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