Air France Logo — Air France (AFR, Compagnie Nationale Air France ) is the airline national French . This company has transported 43.3 million passengers and made ​​a profit of 12.53 billion euros between April of 2001 and March of 2002 . It routes between 345 cities in 85 countries and employs more than 64,000 employees. It belongs to the alliance SkyTeam along with Delta , Aeromexico , Air Europa , Korean Air , CSA Czech Airlines , Alitalia and KLM . In 2004 , Air France is ranked as the first European airline with 18% of all passengers on the continent.

Air France was founded on August 30th of 1933 from the merger of Air Orient, Compagnie Générale Aéropostale of Pierre-Georges Latécoère , Société Générale de Transport Aérien (SGTA, the first French carrier, founded in 1919 as Aériennes Lignes Farman), Air Union and CIDNA (Compagnie Internationale de Navigation). The airline has numerous routes throughout Europe , but also flies to the former French colonies in North Africa and elsewhere. The company was nationalized in the year 1946 creating the Compagnie Nationale Air France in a parliamentary act on June 16th of 1948 . The government was 70% of the new company and still (as of mid 2002 ) owns 54% of the airline. On August 4th of 1948 , Max Hymans was appointed president of Air France. During his thirteen years in office implemented a policy of modernization based on jet aircraft, specifically the Sud Aviation Caravelle and the Boeing 707 .

In 1949 the company participated in the founding of the SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques). The airline used the De Havilland Comet for a short period of time in 1953 , but was quickly replaced by the Vickers Viscount , in 1959 , the company began using the elegant Sud Aviation Caravelle. On December 4, 1969, Boeing 707-328B (registration F-BHSZ) that operated Caracas-Point-to-Pitre sector of Air France Flight 212 fell into the sea shortly after takeoff from Simon Bolivar International Airport (Venezuela) , with the loss of all 62 on board.

In 1976 , the airline began using the only airline supersonic with the Concorde SST in a way from the Charles de Gaulle Airport to New York and other routes such as Paris — Caracas Venezuela . The Concorde was one of only two supersonic airliners. The distance traveled between Paris and New York in only three hours and 20 minutes (approximately twice the speed of sound). In 1994 , a group of terrorist group Algerian GIA took the Air France flight 8969, trying to crash it into the Eiffel Tower . French special forces getting involved derail the plan.

On July 25th of 2000 the Air France Flight 4590 , a Concorde bound for the International Airport John F. Kennedy in New York crashed, killing all occupants of flight and four people who were on the ground. On May 31 , 2003, all Concordes were simultaneously withdrawn from circulation by Air France and British Airways due to low demand resulting from the disaster of 2000. Many (if not all) of these aircraft were transferred to museums. For example, the Concorde F-BVFA (Alpha Foxtrot) was transferred to the museum air and space in Washington where it is still displayed. The F-BVFB was a German museum, F-BTSD the “Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace” in Paris, while the F-BVFC was moved to its place of manufacture in Toulouse ( France ) based current Airbus .

On September 30th of 2003 , Air France and the company Dutch KLM Royal Dutch Airlines , announced the merger of both airlines, forming a new company called Air France-KLM . The owners of Air France went on to have 81% of the new company, leaving the remaining 19% owners of KLM. This led to the French government’s involvement in the company reduced from 54.4% to 44%. On December 24 of that year, three Air France flights bound for Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles were canceled due to fear that some group existing terrorist embarked on one of them. On June 1st of 2009 the Flight 447 by an Airbus A330 F-GZCP enrollment that was bound for Paris and origin Rio de Janeiro disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people aboard.

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