Air Liberté

Air Liberté was an airline in France founded in July of 1987. It was based at Orly Airport in Paris.

Air Liberté began operations in April 1988 with a leased MD-83. It mainly operated to destinations in European and Mediterranean holiday resorts, however it had some interncontinental routes. A route to Montreal was inaugurated in 1993, and Réunion and the Caribbean were also served by the airline. Unsuccessful routes included one from Toulouse to Dakar and London, which were scrapped in a conflict over slot allocations at Orly. 1996 saw a new route to Nice, and in May the route network of Euralair was taken on. Around 1996, the airline had a fleet of 5 Boeing 737-200 airplanes, 8 McDonnell Douglas MD-83 planes and 5 McDonnell Douglas DC-10 planes.

1996 also brought with it financial distress. They lost 1 billion FF ($181 million) that year, and in 1997 British Airways acquired 70% of the shareholding. At this time, British Airways brought Air Liberté together with TAT and inaugurated them under one management. Nouvelair was born out of Air Liberté's subsidiary in Tunisia, Air Liberté Tunisie. However, the airline did not last much longer and in 2001 operations ceased.

References

*Hengi, BI. "Airlines Worldwide". Leicester: Midland Publishing, 1997.
*Donald, David. "The Encyclopedia of Civil Aircraft" Etobicoke: Prospero Books, 1999.