![Comp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Comp._Generale_Aeropostale_1928.jpg)
Aéropostale (formally, ''Compagnie générale aéropostale'') was a pioneering aviation company which operated from 1918 to 1933. It was founded in 1918 in
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, as ''Société des lignes Latécoère'', also known as ''Lignes aeriennes Latécoère'' or simply "The Line" (''La ligne'').
History
![Monument Aéropostale](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Monument_A%C3%A9ropostale.jpg)
Aéropostale founder
Pierre-Georges Latécoère
Pierre-Georges Latécoère (; 1883–1943) was a pioneer of aeronautics. Born in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, he studied in the École Centrale Paris and, during the First World War, started a business in aeronautics. He directed plants that made ...
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
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
and
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
in Spain. In February 1919 the line was extended to
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
. By 1925 it extended to
Dakar
Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.94 million in 2 ...
, where the mail was shipped by steamer to South America. In November 1927 regular flights between
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
and
Natal
NATAL or Natal may refer to:
Places
* Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil
* Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa
** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843)
** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...
were started. Expansion then continued to
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
and in July 1929 a regularly scheduled route across the Andes Mountains to
Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...
, Chile, was started, later extending down to
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla G ...
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
The Latécoère 28 was a successful French long-haul mail plane and passenger airliner of the 1930s. It was the main-stay of Air France's predecessor, Aéropostale (aviation), Aéropostale in its efforts to establish intercontinental air mail serv ...
mail plane
A mail plane is an aircraft used for carrying mail.
Aircraft that were purely mail planes existed almost exclusively prior to World War II. Because early aircraft were too underpowered to carry cargoes, and too costly to run any "economy class" ...
fitted with floats and a
Hispano-Suiza
Hispano-Suiza () is a Spanish automotive–engineering company. It was founded in 1904 by Marc Birkigt and Damian Mateu as an automobile manufacturer and eventually had several factories in Spain and France that produced luxury cars, aircraft en ...
engine made the first nonstop flight. Aeropostale pilot
Jean Mermoz
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* Jea ...
flew from Dakar to Natal in 19 hours, 35 minutes, with his plane holding of mail.
After a scandal 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
Air Orient was an airline based in France. Created in 1929 from the merger of ''Air Asie'' (c. 1928) and ''Air Union Lignes d’Orient'' (c. 1927 – renamed from Messageries Transaeriennes 1923), the short lived airline was merged with Air Franc ...
,
Société Générale de Transport Aérien
Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA.
Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the se ...
,
Air Union
Air Union was a French airline established January 1, 1923, as the result of a merger between the airlines ''Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes'' and '' Compagnie des Grands Express Aériens''. Air Union was merged with four other French airli ...
, and
Compagnie Internationale de Navigation) to create
Air France
Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global air ...
.
Aéropostale pilots
Developed in the aftermath of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
,
air mail
Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be the ...
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
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...
– 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
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
.
Aéropostale's roster of pilots included such aviation legends as:
*
Jean Mermoz
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* Jea ...
*
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...
*
Henri Guillaumet
Henri Guillaumet (29 May 1902 – 27 November 1940) was a French aviator.
Guillaumet was born in Bouy, Marne. He was a pioneer of French aviation in the Andes, the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic. He contributed to the opening up o ...
* Marcel Reine
* Emile Lécrivain
*
Pierre Deley
Pierre Deley (1 November 1893 – 27 February 1981), was one of the pioneering pilots for the Aéropostale company.
He was born in Marseillan, Hérault, the grand nephew and godson of another Marseillan native, Pierre Roques, the founder of ...
* Henri Larrieu (1893 – 1974)
*
Raymond Vanier
Aircraft
Among the aircraft operated by the company were:
*
Blériot 5190 __NOTOC__
The Blériot 5190 was a French transatlantic mail plane of the 1930s, a large parasol-wing monoplane flying boat. It was of slightly unusual design, with a low-profile hull and the crew compartment housed in the thick pylon that suppor ...
* One hundred
Breguet 14 Breguet or Bréguet may refer to:
* Breguet (watch), watch manufacturer
**Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), Swiss watchmaker
**Louis-François-Clement Breguet (1804–1883), French physicist, watchmaker, electrical and telegraph work
* Bréguet ...
s
*
Farman F.70, for passenger and mail routes between Casablanca and Dakar and also from
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
to
Biskra
Biskra ( ar, بسكرة ; ; Latin Vescera) is the capital city of Biskra Province, Algeria. In 2007, its population was recorded as 307,987. Biskra is located in northeastern Algeria, about 248 miles (400 km) from Algiers, 71 miles (115&nbs ...
.
*
Latécoère 26 __NOTOC__
The Latécoère 26 was a French monoplane mail plane designed and built by Latécoère.
Development
The Latécoère 26 was designed in the 1920s as a mail carrier, based on the earlier Latécoère 25 __NOTOC__
The Latécoère 25 was ...
*
Latécoère 28
The Latécoère 28 was a successful French long-haul mail plane and passenger airliner of the 1930s. It was the main-stay of Air France's predecessor, Aéropostale (aviation), Aéropostale in its efforts to establish intercontinental air mail serv ...
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.
[Hanson & Gevinson 1993, Vol. 3.] In the movie the airline was given the fictitious name Trans-Andean European Air Mail.
* In 1995,
Futuroscope
Futuroscope, or Parc du Futuroscope (), formerly known as Planète Futuroscope, is a French theme park based upon multimedia, cinematographic futuroscope and audio-visual techniques. It has several 3D cinemas and a few 4D cinemas along with ...
paid homage to Aéropostale pilot
Henri Guillaumet
Henri Guillaumet (29 May 1902 – 27 November 1940) was a French aviator.
Guillaumet was born in Bouy, Marne. He was a pioneer of French aviation in the Andes, the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic. He contributed to the opening up o ...
with a 3D
IMAX
IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating.
Graeme F ...
film by
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Jean-Jacques Annaud (; born 1 October 1943) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for directing ''Quest for Fire'' (1981), ''The Name of the Rose'' (1986), '' The Bear'' (1988), '' The Lover'' (1992), '' Seven Years in ...
, 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
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...
, while flying mail for the South American subsidiary,
Aeroposta Argentina.
[James, Caryn]
Wings of Courage: High Over the Andes, In Enormous Goggles (1995 Film Review)
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', 21 April 1995. Retrieved: 28 September 2012. Guillaumet was portrayed by
Craig Sheffer
Craig Eric Sheffer (born April 23, 1960) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his leading roles as Norman Maclean in the film '' A River Runs Through It, ''Aaron Boone in the film ''Nightbreed'', Joe Kane in the film '' The ...
,
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...
by
Tom Hulce
Thomas Edward Hulce (; born December 6, 1953) is an American actor and theater producer. He is best known for his portrayal of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Academy Award-winning film ''Amadeus'' (1984), as well as the roles of Larry "Pinto" Kr ...
, and
Jean Mermoz
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* Jea ...
played by
Val Kilmer
Val Edward Kilmer (born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer found fame after appearances in comedy films, starting with ''Top Secret!'' (1984) and ''Real Genius'' (1985), as well as the military action film ...
.
See also
*
Aéropostale, a
U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
apparel outlet that took its name and some of its design cues from the ''Compagnie générale aéropostale''.
*
Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela
Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela C.A. is a state-owned airline of Venezuela based in Torre Polar Oeste in Caracas, Venezuela. It operates domestic services and international services in the Caribbean. Its main base is Simón Bolívar Internatio ...
, normally referred to as just ''Aeropostal'', an airline in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, 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,
* Binder, Yves Marc & Sophie. "Aéropostale, les carnets de vol de Léopold", 2009,
* de Bure, Guillemette. "Les secrets de l’Aéropostale: Les années Bouilloux-Lafont 1926-1944", 2007,
* 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. .
*
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
Latecoere and "the Line"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aeropostale
Defunct airlines of France
Airlines established in 1918
Airlines disestablished in 1932
1932 mergers and acquisitions
1932 disestablishments in France
French companies established in 1918