Compagnie Générale Aéropostale
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| Founded | 1918, France | ||||||
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| Commenced operations | 1918, France | ||||||
| Ceased operations | October 7, 1933 | ||||||
| Operating bases | Toulouse-Montaudran Airport (Toulouse – Lasbordes Airport) Toulouse, France | ||||||
| Destinations | Barcelona, Dakar, Casablanca | ||||||
| Headquarters | Toulouse, France | ||||||
| Key people | Pierre-Georges Latécoère | ||||||
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).
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. Expansion then continued to Paraguay, and in July 1929 a regularly scheduled route across the Andes Mountains to Santiago, Chile, were 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.
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