Air Inter () (legally ''Lignes Aériennes Intérieures'') was a semi-public French domestic airline in France that operated from 1954 until it merged with

Air France Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...

in 1997. It was last headquartered in Paray-Vieille-Poste,

Essonne Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes.''World Airline Directory''. Flight International. 26 March-1 April 1997.
44
Earlier in its life, it was headquartered in the

1st arrondissement of Paris The 1st arrondissement of Paris (''Ier arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is colloquially referred to as ''le premier'' (the first). I ...

. Air Inter was incorporated on 12 November 1954. It operated its first commercial flight between

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

on 16 March 1958. However, it was 1960 when the airline started regular commercial services.Air France (Airline, France)
The company established its operational and engineering base at Paris-Orly Airport, where its flights were concentrated at Orly Ouest, Orly Airport's West Terminal. Air Inter was founded as a semi-public entity to provide efficient domestic air transport at the lowest

cost Cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it i ...

. Its financial backers included French public and private sector transport businesses in road, rail and air transport, as well as banks.

and

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

, the state railway company, were Air Inter's two largest public sector shareholders, each holding 25% in the airline.

UTA Uta or UTA may refer to: Universities *University of Texas at Arlington, in the United States *University of Texas at Austin, in the United States *University of Tarapacá, in Chile *University of Tampere, in Finland Sports * FC UTA Arad, a R ...

was its largest private sector investor. UTA initially held a 15% minority stake in Air Inter. UTA subsequently increased its shareholding to 36%, becoming the largest single shareholder.''AF and UTA battle for Air Inter'', Air Transport, Flight International, 31 October 1987, p. 7
/ref>
/ref> ttps://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/13/business/air-france-buying-into-2-carriers.html The New York Times, 13 January 1990, Business - Air France Buying Into 2 Carriers/ref> On 12 January 1990, Air Inter, with UTA and Air France, became part of an enlarged Air France group, which in turn became a subsidiary of Groupe Air France. Air Inter changed to Air Inter Europe following a merger with Air France and UTA. On 1 April 1997, it was absorbed into Air France. On that day, the firm ceased to exist as a legal entity within Groupe Air France.

History

Vickers Viscount 724 F-BNAX Inter Orly 07

On 23 February 1960, France's Ministry of Public Works and Transport decided to transfer Air France's domestic

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

to Air Inter. This provided the impetus for Air Inter to start scheduled services within

metropolitan France Metropolitan France ( or ), also known as European France (), is the area of France which is geographically in Europe and chiefly comprises #Hexagon, the mainland, popularly known as "the Hexagon" ( or ), and Corsica. This collective name for the ...

, as well as between the mainland and

Corsica Corsica ( , , ; ; ) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the Regions of France, 18 regions of France. It is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the Metro ...

. Though a private sector company because of its

limited liability Limited liability is a legal status in which a person's financial Legal liability, liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person's investment in a corporation, company, or joint venture. If a company that provides limi ...

status, Air Inter was compelled to operate unprofitable regional domestic routes to justify its domestic monopoly on profitable routes from Paris. Air Inter primarily operated high-frequency scheduled internal flights from Paris Orly to cities in metropolitan France, principally

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

, Strasbourg and

Mulhouse Mulhouse (; ; Alsatian language, Alsatian: ''Mìlhüsa'' ; , meaning "Mill (grinding), mill house") is a France, French city of the European Collectivity of Alsace (Haut-Rhin department, in the Grand Est region of France). It is near the Fran ...

. Following the opening of

Charles de Gaulle Airport Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport , also known as Roissy Airport, is the primary international airport serving Paris, the capital city of France. The airport opened in 1974 and is located in Roissy-en-France, northeast of Paris. It is named for ...

near the northern Paris suburb of

Roissy-en-France Roissy-en-France (, "Roissy-in-France" after the Pays de France), colloquially simply called Roissy, is a commune in the northeastern outer suburbs of Paris, France, in the Val-d'Oise department. It is located from the centre of Paris. One-q ...

and the transfer of the bulk of Air France's international operations from

Orly Orly () is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France. It is located from the center of Paris. The name of Orly came from Latin ''Aureliacum'', "the villa of Aurelius". Orly Airport partially lies on the territory of the c ...

from 1974, as well as the simultaneous transfer of UTA's

Le Bourget Le Bourget () is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The commune features Le Bourget Airport, which in turn hosts the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace (Air and Space Museum). A very ...

-based operation to that airport, Air Inter began serving these routes from Charles de Gaulle as well (with the exception of Nice) to feed domestic passengers into those airlines' international networks. Air Inter also linked Orly with additional second and third-tier provincial French towns as well as with all three commercial airports on Corsica (

Ajaccio Ajaccio (, , ; French language, French: ; or ; , locally: ; ) is the capital and largest city of Corsica, France. It forms a communes of France, French commune, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Corse-du-Sud, and head o ...

Bastia Bastia ( , , , ; ) is a communes of France, commune in the Departments of France, department of Haute-Corse, Corsica, France. It is located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It also has the second-highest popu ...

, Calvi). The airline operated regional domestic scheduled routes between major French cities as well. Many of Air Inter's routes serving smaller towns were contracted to TAT. Prior to the

liberalisation Liberalization or liberalisation (British English) is a broad term that refers to the practice of making laws, systems, or opinions less severe, usually in the sense of eliminating certain government regulations or restrictions. The term is used ...

of the internal air market in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

(EU) during the early 1990s, Air Inter was a pillar of the French air transport industry with Air France, UTA and TAT. During that period Air Inter had a large share of the domestic market. It was the only airline plying most of the domestic trunk routes within metropolitan France on a regular scheduled basis, especially from and to Paris. The exceptions were Paris-Nice and Paris- Basel/Mulhouse. Air Inter's flights between Paris Orly and Nice competed with Air France's Paris-Charles de Gaulle — Nice, and Orly—Nice flights. Air Inter competed head-on with

Swissair Swissair (German language, German: Schweizerische Luftverkehr-AG; French language, French: S.A. Suisse pour la Navigation Aérienne, stylised as swissair) was the Flag carrier, national airline of Switzerland between its founding in 1931 and ban ...

, the former Swiss

flag carrier A flag carrier is a transport company, such as an airline or shipping company, that, being locally registered in a given sovereign state, enjoys preferential rights or privileges accorded by that government for international operations. Histo ...

, between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Basel/Mulhouse. Air Inter Dassault Mercure at Basle - February 1985

The difference between the competing Air Inter and Swissair services on this route was that the former's passengers had to use the terminal at Basel/Mulhouse airport through the domestic channel that connected the airport to the French city of Mulhouse, whereas the latter's used the international channel that linked the airport with the Swiss city of Basel. For this reason, Air Inter's flights were categorised as domestic while Swissair's were international. In addition, UTA had limited rights to carry passengers, cargo and mail on the internal legs of its long-haul services, between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Lyon, Marseille, Nice as well as Bordeaux. However, flights were too infrequent to pose a threat to Air Inter. SNCF, one of Air Inter's two largest public sector shareholders, was also the company's main competitor on domestic trunk routes inside France. This intensified when SNCF began high-frequency high-speed train (TGV) services on purpose-built tracks from 1981. The launch of TGV services between Paris and

, one of Air Inter's busiest as well as shortest routes, in 1981 led to a reduction in frequency and smaller aircraft on Air Inter's competing service. The only other domestic air routes on which Air Inter competed with Air France in the pre-liberalisation era were routes linking the mainland with Corsica. In 1977, Air Inter purchased a 20% stake from Air France in the latter's charter affiliate Air Charter International, in return for ceasing to be a rival supplier of

charter airline Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a ticket through a traditional airline). Regulation Charter – also called air taxi or ad hoc – flight ...

seats in the French inclusive tour market. Dassault Mercure Passenger

Annual passenger numbers on Air Inter's domestic scheduled network grew steadily to 21 million, actually beating Air France one year. This established the firm as the largest scheduled domestic airline in Europe. Air Inter was also one of the few European ultra short-haul, mainline scheduled operators to be profitable most of the time and was a forerunner of today's low-cost airlines in Europe. Fares were lower than domestic air fares elsewhere in Europe and competing rail fares, with short turnarounds (35 minutes for a full 314-seat A300 was common), no seat allocation,

no frills A no-frills or no frills service or product is one for which the non-essential features have been removed to keep the price low. The term "Ruffle (sewing), frills" originally refers to a style of fabric decoration. Something offered to customers f ...

service on board and minimum crews. On 1 January 1995, Air Inter lost its monopoly on the domestic trunk routes from Paris Orly. From that day, any EU-based rival was free to compete on these routes, without restrictions on capacity, frequency or fares. The sale of controlling stakes in Air Inter and UTA to Air France, as well as integration of both of the former into the latter, was part of a

French government The Government of France (, ), officially the Government of the French Republic (, ), exercises Executive (government), executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister of France, prime minister, who is the head of government, ...

plan to create a unified, national carrier with the

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of Productivity, output produced per unit of cost (production cost). A decrease in ...

and global reach to counter threats from the liberalisation of the EU's internal air transport market.

Fleet

Air Inter pioneered Category 3 all-weather landings and started operating Category 3 minima with Caravelles — upgrading with enhanced

head-up display A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD () or head-up guidance system (HGS), is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a ...

s on Mercure and A320s. Caravelle 12

Listed below are the main aircraft types that were part of Air Inter's fleet at one point or another throughout its 37 years of continuous operations: *

Airbus A300 The Airbus A300 is Airbus' first production aircraft and the world's first Twinjet, twin-engine, double-aisle Wide-body aircraft, (wide-body) airliner. It was developed by ''Airbus Industrie GIE'', now merged into Airbus SE, and manufactured f ...

B2/B4 series *

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first membe ...

100/200 series * Airbus A321-100 *

Airbus A330-300 The Airbus A330 is a wide-body airliner developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus began developing larger A300 derivatives in the mid–1970s, giving rise to the A330 twinjet as well as the Airbus A340 quadjet, and launched both designs along ...

* Dassault Mercure *

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper ...

/C-47 * Fokker F27 Friendship 500 series * Fokker 100 * Nord 262 *

Sud Aviation Caravelle The Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle is a French jet airliner produced by Sud Aviation. It was developed by SNCASE in the early 1950s, and made its maiden flight on May 27, 1955. It included some de Havilland designs and components developed for t ...

III series/12 series ("Super 12") *

Vickers Viscount The Vickers Viscount is a retired British medium-range turboprop airliner first flown in 1948 by Vickers-Armstrongs. A design requirement from the Brabazon Committee, it entered service in 1953 and was the first turboprop-powered airliner. T ...

700 series. Air Inter entered the

jet age The Jet Age is a period in the history of aviation defined by the advent of aircraft powered by jet turbine engines and the social and cultural changes fostered by commercial jet travel. Jet airliners were able to fly higher, faster, and farth ...

with the Caravelle III. Air Inter was an early operator of the Airbus A300, the European aircraft manufacturer's first commercial

jetliner A jet airliner or jetliner is an airliner powered by jet engines (passenger jet aircraft). Airliners usually have two or four jet engines; three-engined designs were popular in the 1970s but are less common today. Airliners are commonly cla ...

and the airline's first widebodied aircraft. The fleet reached 22 aircraft at its peak with aircraft being acquired second hand up to 1992. Air Inter was also a launch customer for the Dassault Mercure, the French answer to the

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is an American narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the t ...

, as well as the Airbus A320 (eventually building a fleet of 33 of the 320 variant alone), the only airline customer in the world for the former and joint launch customer with Air France and British Caledonian for the latter. The Mercure entered commercial airline service with Air Inter on June 4, 1974.

Dassault Aviation Dassault Aviation SA () is a French Aerospace manufacturer, manufacturer of military aircraft and business jets. It was founded in 1929 by Marcel Dassault, Marcel Bloch as Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (Marcel Bloch Aircraft Company). After ...

's inability to find other customers for the Mercure resulted in the French government granting Air Inter a

subsidy A subsidy, subvention or government incentive is a type of government expenditure for individuals and households, as well as businesses with the aim of stabilizing the economy. It ensures that individuals and households are viable by having acc ...

of £10,775,000. This helped the airline bear the financial burden of operating an "orphan fleet" of only ten aircraft. In addition to the ten aircraft that formed part of Air Inter's original order for the Mercure, the airline had the aircraft's

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...

converted to airline standard as well. This subsequently joined the fleet, increasing the company's Mercure sub-fleet to eleven. It was withdrawn from service in 1995, after 20 years' uninterrupted service. The A320 entered service with Air Inter in 1988. The A330 was the last aircraft type to join the Air Inter fleet in 1994. Air Inter was the launch operator of the type.

Incidents and accidents

There were 12 recorded incidents/accidents involving Air Inter aircraft throughout 37 years of uninterrupted commercial operations, three of which were fatal. One of the other nine reported incidents included an

aircraft hijacking Aircraft hijacking (also known as airplane hijacking, skyjacking, plane hijacking, plane jacking, air robbery, air piracy, or aircraft piracy, with the last term used within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States) is the Crime, ...

, resulting in the loss of one life. The airline's three fatal accidents were: * On 12 August 1963, Air Inter Flight 2611, a Vickers Viscount 708 registered as F-BGNV, operating a scheduled flight from

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

to Lyon crashed while holding over Tramoyes at FL30 on the instructions of Lyon ATC, resulting in the deaths of 15 of the aircraft's 16 occupants (all four crew members and 11 out of 12 passengers) as well as one person on the ground. A storm forced the flight crew to request ATC permission to descend to FL25. In response, the crew received clearance for a straight-in approach to Lyon–Bron Airport's runway 17. Eyewitnesses reported the aircraft flying low in an easterly direction in the heart of the storm. The aircraft struck trees, the roof of a farmhouse and a telephone pole before coming to rest in a field. The investigation board cited exceptionally bad weather where the aircraft was instructed to hold, as well as a possibility of lightning dazzling the crew and causing temporary blindness or appreciably incapacitating both

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

s. * On 27 October 1972, Air Inter Flight 696Y, a Vickers Viscount 724 registered as F-BMCH, operating a scheduled night flight from Lyon to

Clermont-Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand (, , ; or simply ; ) is a city and Communes of France, commune of France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions of France, region, with a population of 147,284 (2020). Its metropolitan area () had 504,157 inhabitants at the 2018 ...

crashed into the Pic du Picon mountain 44 km east of Clermont-Ferrand airport at 1,000 ft killing 60 of the aircraft's 68 occupants, including all five crew and 55 of the 63 passengers. The accident was caused by the flight deck crew's failure to notice their plane's

radio compass Direction finding (DF), radio direction finding (RDF), or radiogoniometry is the use of radio waves to determine the direction to a radio source. The source may be a cooperating radio transmitter or may be an inadvertent source, a naturall ...

had shifted 180 degrees, most likely as a result of electrical discharges in rainfall blocking the signals emitted by Clermont-Ferrand's

non-directional beacon A non-directional beacon (NDB) or non-directional radio beacon is a radio beacon which does not include directional information. Radio beacons are radio transmitters at a known location, used as an aviation or marine navigational aid. NDB are i ...

(NDB), while being instructed to fly a holding pattern prior to receiving clearance to descend to 3,600 ft. This resulted in the crew's initiating their descent too early, which set the aircraft on a collision course with the mountain. * On 20 January 1992, Air Inter Flight 148, operated by an Airbus A320-111 registered as F-GGED, crashed into a ridge near Mount Sainte-Odile in the

Vosges The Vosges ( , ; ; Franconian and ) is a range of medium mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single geomorphological unit and ...

mountains while on final approach to Strasbourg at the end of a scheduled flight from Lyon. This resulted in the deaths of 87 of the aircraft's occupants (five crew members, 82 passengers), the worst accident in company history. There were nine survivors (one crew member, eight passengers). The accident was caused by the aircraft's wrongly programmed Flight Control Unit (FCU), a consequence of the crew's failure to notice that the FCU was in ncorrectvertical speed mode when programming the angle of descent (-3.3 .3 degrees. The excessive descent (3,300 ft./minute instead of 800 ft./minute) took the aircraft below its minimum safe

altitude Altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum (geodesy), datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometr ...

. This resulted in the aircraft's striking trees and a 2,710 ft high ridge in the cloud-covered mountains.Accident Investigation Report, Air Inter Airbus A320-111 (F-GGED)
/ref> The following was a notable, non-fatal incident: * On 28 December 1971,

(registration: F-BOEA) was damaged beyond economic repair at Clermont-Ferrand Aulnat Airport when it departed the runway on a training flight during a simulated failure of number 4 engine.

References

External links

Air France/Air Inter Europe
(Archive)

* ttp://homepages.nyu.edu/~mrg217/MA.pdf M.R. Golder, The Changing Nature of French Dirigisme - A Case Study of Air France, St. Edmunds Hall, Oxford. Thesis submitted at Trinity College, 1997
Air Inter at the Aviation Safety Network Database
{{Authority control Defunct airlines of France Airlines established in 1954 Airlines disestablished in 1997 French companies established in 1954 French companies disestablished in 1997 1997 disestablishments in France