Air France in the context of West Berlin

Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (IATA: CDG, ICAO: LFPG), also known as Roissy Airport, is the primary international airport serving Paris, the capital of France. The airport opened in 1974 and is located in Roissy-en-France, 23 km (14 mi) northeast of the city centre of Paris. It is named after World War II leader and French President Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970), whose initials form its IATA airport code.

Charles de Gaulle Airport serves as the principal hub for Air France and a destination for other legacy carriers (from Star Alliance, Oneworld and SkyTeam), as well as an operating base for easyJet and Norse Atlantic Airways. It is operated by Groupe ADP (Aéroports de Paris) under the brand Paris Aéroport.

The Entebbe raid, also known as the Operation Entebbe and officially codenamed Operation Thunderbolt (also retroactively codenamed Operation Yonatan), was a 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda. It was launched in response to the hijacking of an international civilian passenger flight (an Airbus A300) operated by Air France between the cities of Tel Aviv and Paris. During a stopover in Athens, the aircraft was hijacked by two Palestinian PFLP–EO and two German RZ members, who diverted the flight to Libya and then to Uganda, where they landed at Entebbe International Airport to be joined by other terrorists. Once in Uganda, the group enjoyed support from Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner with 248 passengers had been hijacked by two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-EO) under orders of Wadie Haddad (who had earlier broken away from the PFLP of George Habash), and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells. The hijackers took hostages with the stated objective of compelling the release of 40 Palestinian and affiliated militants imprisoned in Israel as well as the release of 13 prisoners in four other countries. Over 100 Ugandan soldiers were deployed to support the hijackers after the flight landed, and Amin, who had been informed of the hijacking from the beginning, had personally welcomed the terrorists at Entebbe. After moving all of the hostages to a defunct airport, the hijackers separated all Israelis and several non-Israeli Jews from the larger group of passengers, subsequently moving them into a separate room. Over the next two days, 148 non-Israeli hostages were released and flown out to Paris. The 94 remaining passengers, most of whom were Israelis, and the 12-member Air France crew continued to be held as hostages.

Air France Flight 8969 (Operation Rock Climber) was an Air France flight that was hijacked on 24 December 1994 by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers. The militants murdered three passengers and their intention was either to detonate the aircraft over the Eiffel Tower or the Tour Montparnasse in Paris. When the aircraft reached Marseille, the GIGN, a tier one counterterrorism and hostage rescue unit of the French National Gendarmerie, stormed the plane and killed all four hijackers. The incident led to Air France halting their flights to Algeria until 2004, two years after the end of the Algerian Civil War.

Paris Orly Airport (French: Aéroport de Paris-Orly, pronounced [aeʁɔpɔʁ də paʁi ɔʁli]) (IATA: ORY, ICAO: LFPO) is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, 13 km (8.1 mi) south of Paris. It serves as a secondary hub for domestic and overseas territories flights of Air France and as the homebase for Transavia France. Flights operate to destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and North America.

Before the opening of CDG in 1974, Orly was the main airport of Paris. Even with the shift of most international traffic to CDG, Orly remains the busiest French airport for domestic traffic and the second busiest French airport overall in passenger traffic, with 33,123,027 passengers in 2024.

Nice Côte d'Azur Airport (IATA: NCE, ICAO: LFMN) is an international airport located 3.2 NM (5.9 km; 3.7 mi) southwest of Nice, in the Alpes-Maritimes department of France. It is the third busiest airport in France and serves as a focus city for Air France and an operating base for easyJet. In 2024, it handled 14,770,626 passengers. The airport is positioned 7 km (4 mi) west of the city centre, and is the principal port of arrival for passengers to the Côte d'Azur.

Due to its proximity to Monaco, which is located 20 km (12 mi) away to the northeast, it also serves as that city-state's airport, with helicopter service linking the principality and airport. Some airlines market Monaco as a destination via Nice Airport.

In the United States, a legacy carrier is an airline that was once economically regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) during the period of airline regulation 1938–1978 or can trace its origin to one that did. The CAB was a now defunct federal agency that tightly controlled almost all US commercial air transport during that period. As related below, many features associated with the legacy airline business model were actually developed not during the regulated era, but instead in the first decade or so of the deregulated era, as legacy carriers adapted to an unfamiliar competitive environment.

While the term "legacy carrier" is most often used in a US context, it is possible to speak of legacy carriers elsewhere, since tight airline regulation was once the global norm and following US airline deregulation, many other countries went through some kind of airline deregulation. Non-US carriers with origins that precede liberalization can be viewed as legacy carriers. For instance, in Europe, flag carriers such as British Airways, Air France, KLM, Iberia, and Lufthansa, (with origins well before the liberalized era) can be viewed as legacy carriers in contrast to airlines such as Ryanair, EasyJet, Wizz Air, and so forth.

The Gauche Plurielle (French for Plural Left) was a left-wing coalition in France, composed of the Socialist Party (Parti socialiste or PS), the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français or PCF), the Greens, the Left Radical Party (Parti radical de gauche or PRG), and the Citizens' Movement (Mouvement des citoyens or MDC). Succeeding Alain Juppé's conservative government, the Plural Left governed France from 1997 to 2002. It was another case of cohabitation between rival parties at the head of the state and of the government (Jacques Chirac as president and Lionel Jospin as prime minister). Following the failure of the left in the 2002 legislative election, it was replaced by another conservative government, this time headed by Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

The Plural Left government initiated several reforms, including the CMU social welfare program for indigents, the PACS civil union law, the 35 hours workweek, the creation of the FNAEG DNA database, but also several privatizations (France Télécom, GAN, Thomson Multimédia, Air France, Eramet, Aérospatiale, Autoroutes du sud de la France). It also passed the SRU Law forcing each commune to have a 20% quota of housing projects, the 15 June 2000 Guigou law on presumption of innocence, the Taubira Law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity, and the LSQ law concerning security. Furthermore, Jospin's government carried out a partial regularization of undocumented immigrants.

Air France–KLM S.A., also known as Air France–KLM Group (stylised as AIRFRANCEKLM GROUP), is a French-Dutch multinational airline holding company with its headquarters in the rue du Cirque, Paris, France. The group’s three major brands are Air France, KLM and Transavia. Air France–KLM is the result of the merger in 2004 between Air France and KLM. Both Air France and KLM are members of the SkyTeam airline alliance. The group's main hubs are Paris–Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris Orly Airport and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Air France–KLM airlines transported 83 million passengers in 2022.

This is a list of airlines by foundation date of the company. The list includes airlines founded before December 31, 1930.

Rows with a light-green background indicate the earliest predecessor company of an airline that is still operating as a parent company or a subsidiary company (many modern airline holding companies operate more than one airline). Of the airlines still operating, Air France has the oldest predecessor company, Compagnie générale transaérienne, which was established in 1909 and began scheduled fixed-wing passenger operations in 1913. Another Air France predecessor, Lignes Aériennes Farman, began the first regular international passenger operations in 1919. KLM is the oldest airline still operating under its original name, Koninklijke Luchtvaartmaatschappij, under which it was established in 1919 and began operating the following year.

Tremblay-en-France (French pronunciation: [tʁɑ̃blɛ ɑ̃ fʁɑ̃s] , lit. 'Tremblay in France'; before 1989: Tremblay-lès-Gonesse, lit. 'Tremblay near Gonesse') is a commune in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 19.5 km (12.1 mi) from the centre of Paris.

More than one-quarter of Charles de Gaulle Airport lies within the territory of the commune of Tremblay-en-France, in particular terminals 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D (the other terminals lie in the territory of other communes). It is the largest, by area, of the so-called petite couronne (inner ring) suburbs of Paris. The corporate head office of Air France and OEMServices lie within Tremblay.

Air Inter (French pronunciation: [ɛʁ‿ɛ̃tɛʁ]) (legally Lignes Aériennes Intérieures) was a semi-public French domestic airline in France that operated from 1954 until it merged with Air France in 1997. It was last headquartered in Paray-Vieille-Poste, Essonne. Earlier in its life, it was headquartered in the 1st arrondissement of Paris.

Air Inter was incorporated on 12 November 1954. It operated its first commercial flight between Paris and Strasbourg on 16 March 1958. However, it was 1960 when the airline started regular commercial services.

Union de Transports Aériens (French pronunciation: [ynjõ də tɾɑ̃spɔʁz‿aeʁjɛ̃]; abbreviated as UTA and sometimes known as UTA French Airlines), was a private independent airline in France that operated from 1963 until it merged with Air France in 1992. UTA was formed by the merger of Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT) and Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux (TAI). UTA was the largest wholly privately owned, independent airline in France. It was also the second-largest international, as well as the second principal intercontinental, French airline and a full member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) since its inception.

The airline was a subsidiary of Compagnie Maritime des Chargeurs Réunis, the French shipping line founded and controlled by the Fabre family, but was absorbed into Air France between 1990 and 1992.

The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus, and is the best-selling airliner ever built. The A320 aircraft programme was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France.The first member of the family was followed by the stretched A321 (first delivered in January 1994), the shorter A319 (April 1996), and the shortest variant, the A318 (July 2003).Final assembly takes place in Toulouse in France; Hamburg in Germany; Tianjin in China since 2009; and Mobile, Alabama, in the United States since April 2016.

The twinjet has a six-abreast economy cross-section and came with either CFM56-5A or -5B, or IAE V2500 turbofan engines, except the A318. The A318 has either two CFM56-5B engines or a pair of PW6000 engines in place of the IAE V2500.The family pioneered the use of digital fly-by-wire and side-stick flight controls in airliners.Variants offer maximum take-off weights from 68 to 93.5 tonnes (150,000 to 206,000 lb), to cover a 5,740–6,940 kilometres; 3,570–4,320 miles (3,100–3,750 nmi) range.The 31.4 m (103 ft) long A318 typically accommodates 107 to 132 passengers.The 124-156 seat A319 is 33.8 m (111 ft) long.The A320 is 37.6 m (123 ft) long and can accommodate 150 to 186 passengers.The 44.5 m (146 ft) A321 offers 185 to 230 seats.The Airbus Corporate Jets are modified business jet versions of the standard commercial variants.

The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus, and is the best-selling airliner ever built. The A320 aircraft programme was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France.The first member of the family was followed by the stretched A321 (first delivered in January 1994), the shorter A319 (April 1996), and the shortest variant, the A318 (July 2003).Final assembly takes place in Toulouse in France; Hamburg in Germany; Tianjin in China since 2009; and Mobile, Alabama, in the United States since April 2016.

The twinjet has a six-abreast economy cross-section and came with either CFM56-5A or -5B, or IAE V2500 turbofan engines, except the A318. The A318 has either two CFM56-5B engines or a pair of PW6000 engines in place of the IAE V2500.The family pioneered the use of digital fly-by-wire and side-stick flight controls in airliners.Variants offer maximum take-off weights from 68 to 93.5 tonnes (150,000 to 206,000 lb), with a range of 5,740–6,940 kilometres; 3,570–4,320 miles (3,100–3,750 nmi).The 31.4 m (103 ft) long A318 typically accommodates 107 to 132 passengers.The 124-156 seat A319 is 33.8 m (111 ft) long.The A320 is 37.6 m (123 ft) long and can accommodate 150 to 186 passengers.The 44.5 m (146 ft) A321 offers 185 to 230 seats.The Airbus Corporate Jets are modified business jet versions of the standard commercial variants.