Aigle Azur

If you spotted at Paris-Orly between 2005 and 2019, you know them: white Airbus jets with an eagle on the tail, regularly departing for Algiers, Oran or Lisbon. For years Aigle Azur was one of France’s largest private airlines and, for many families between France and Algeria, the connection of choice. In September 2019 it suddenly ended. Here you will learn where the airline came from, which aircraft it flew and how to recognize it in old photos.

Aigle Azur at a glance

Aigle Azur was a private French scheduled airline headquartered in Paray-Vieille-Poste, right at Paris-Orly Airport. The name is old: as early as 1946 the entrepreneur Sylvain Floirat founded an airline of that name, which flew until 1955. The company that operated until 2019, by contrast, has its roots in a small regional airline from 1970 that only took the storied name back in 2001.

In its last two decades, Aigle Azur was above all one thing: the private alternative to Air Algérie and Air France on the routes between France and Algeria. Portugal, West Africa, the Middle East and finally even long-haul routes to Brazil and China were added. In 2016 the airline carried around 1.9 million passengers, according to German-language Wikipedia.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code ZI: appeared before flight numbers, on tickets and display boards.
• ICAO code AAF: identifier in the flight plan filed with air traffic control and on flight trackers.
• Callsign AIGLE AZUR: this is how the crews called in on the radio.

Since the shutdown in 2019 the code AAF has no longer been linked to any active flight operation. If you are sorting old flight plans or logbook entries, the date helps: ZI flight numbers from the years up to 2019 clearly belong to this airline. How IATA and ICAO codes work and why they are sometimes reassigned is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes.

History: two lives under one name

The first Aigle Azur (1946–1955)

The story begins shortly after the Second World War. In spring 1946 a company was formed that was at first called “L’Aigle Bleu” and was renamed Aigle Azur in June 1946 – it is considered France’s first private airline after the war. The founder was Sylvain Floirat. The first aircraft were three-engine Junkers Ju 52s and their French-built version, the AAC.1 Toucan. The first routes linked the French Mediterranean coast with Corsica, Tunisia and Algeria.

Soon the Douglas DC-3 became the workhorse. From 1950 Aigle Azur flew the Boeing 307 Stratoliner to Indochina and within the region, and in the early 1950s Dakar, Brazzaville and Tananarive on Madagascar were added, among others. The Indochina War shaped these years: the airline lost several DC-3s in accidents and incidents, and in 1954 seven aircraft were destroyed or damaged at Gia Lam Airport in Hanoi. On May 1, 1955, Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT) took over the remaining fleet, which finally included three Douglas DC-6s. A subsidiary, Aigle Azur Maroc, later became Air Maroc and was absorbed into Royal Air Maroc. You can read more about the classic of this era in the profile of the Douglas DC-3.

Lucas Aviation and Lucas Aigle Azur (1970–2000)

In 1970 the regional airline Lucas Aviation was founded in Pontoise, northwest of Paris; it later operated under the name Lucas Aigle Azur, picking up the old brand. It flew regional routes; the fleet at times included the Saab 340. Around the turn of the millennium the company was small: at the takeover in 2001 the fleet consisted of just two Boeing 737-200s.

A fresh start with GoFast and Algeria (2001–2011)

In May 2001 the GoFast group of the Idjerouidène family took over the airline, invested and renewed the fleet. From then on it was once again simply called Aigle Azur. The focus was on Algeria from the start. When Air Lib, the successor of Air Liberté and AOM, disappeared from the market in the early 2000s, Aigle Azur expanded its scheduled service and became one of the most important airlines between the two countries.

From 2006 destinations in Morocco and Tunisia were added. In June 2008 its own frequent flyer program, Azur Plus, launched. Toward the end of the 2000s Aigle Azur switched to the Airbus family, with the A319, A320 and, for a time, the A321. Baghdad was an outlier: the route, opened in October 2010, was discontinued again in mid-2011.

HNA, Neeleman and long-haul (2012–2018)

In 2012 China’s HNA Group, parent of Hainan Airlines, took a 48 percent stake. In the same year Aigle Azur agreed a partnership with Corsair. In 2014 it had around 1,400 employees and was described at the time as the second-largest French airline after Air France.

In November 2017 David Neeleman, founder of Brazil’s Azul, bought about a third of the shares. Frantz Yvelin became the new chief. He took Aigle Azur into long-haul: in 2018 two Airbus A330-200s from the fleet of the insolvent Air Berlin arrived for flights to São Paulo and Beijing. In the same year the airline opened its first purely domestic route with Lyon–Nantes, which ended again in January 2019. Codeshares most recently existed with Azul, Corsair, Hainan Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Air Caraïbes and S7, among others.

The 2019 collapse

In 2019 things went downhill fast. The route to Beijing was abandoned again. In summer the dispute among the shareholders escalated: Gérard Houa, who held around 20 percent, wanted to take over leadership and met resistance from HNA and Neeleman. On August 27, 2019, the court appointed a provisional administrator, insolvency proceedings began on September 2, 2019, and from the evening of September 6, 2019, Aigle Azur canceled all flights.

Several takeover bids came in for the airline, including bids from Air France and the Dubreuil Group, which includes Air Caraïbes and French Bee. The roughly 9,800 slots at Orly were especially coveted. On September 27, 2019, the commercial court in Évry declared that none of the bids was viable – and with that, Aigle Azur was history for good. That same fall another French airline, XL Airways France, went into insolvency. The article Major airline collapses in Europe puts this in context.

The route network

The network of the late Aigle Azur was clearly oriented toward North Africa, supplemented by destinations with large communities in France. The table shows a selection from different years:

Region	Destinations (selection)	Note
Algeria	Algiers, Oran, Constantine and other cities	Core business
Portugal	Lisbon, Porto, Faro	second pillar alongside Algeria
West Africa	Bamako, Dakar	Mali until the shutdown in 2019
Middle East and Eastern Europe	Beirut, Moscow, Kyiv	at times, plus Baghdad in 2010/11
Europe	Berlin-Tegel, Milan, Cologne/Bonn	at times
Long-haul	São Paulo, Beijing	from 2018 with A330-200s, Beijing abandoned in 2019

Departure airports in France besides Orly included Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Basel-Mulhouse; at times Aigle Azur also flew from Paris-Charles de Gaulle. If you have photos from Lisbon in your archive, you will find tips on spotting there today in the guide Plane spotting in Lisbon.

The fleet

At the shutdown in September 2019, eleven aircraft were flying for Aigle Azur, with an average age of a good eleven years:

Type	Number in 2019	Use	Spotter note
Airbus A319-100	1	Short- and medium-haul	Shortest fuselage in the family
Airbus A320-200	8	Algeria, Portugal, Europe	Backbone of the fleet
Airbus A330-200	2	São Paulo, Beijing	Previously with Air Berlin
Airbus A321	earlier	Short- and medium-haul	No longer in the fleet in 2019
Boeing 737-200, -300, -400	earlier	Algeria, charter	Defined the years around 2001
Saab 340	earlier	Regional service	From the Lucas era

Some aircraft flew at times on behalf of TAP Air Portugal. The manufacturer of the late fleet was consistently Airbus.

A319 and A320: the Algeria fleet

The A320 was the aircraft with which Aigle Azur handled the Algeria traffic. All the aircraft belonged to the first generation, the ceo family – Aigle Azur never operated an A320neo. You recognize the A319 by its shorter fuselage with fewer windows ahead of and behind the wing; very early on the longer A321 was added as well. How to tell the family members apart is shown in How to tell the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart, and the difference from the neo generation is explained in A320neo or ceo?.

A330-200: the Air Berlin legacy

The two A330-200s are the exotics of the story. They previously flew for Air Berlin and came to Aigle Azur after its insolvency in 2018. In photos from the transition period, a close look is worthwhile, because lease changes often leave traces of the old paint – more on this under How to recognize hybrid and mixed liveries. You will find the backstory of the aircraft in the profile of Air Berlin.

Boeing 737: the restart years

When GoFast took over in 2001, the fleet consisted of two 737-200s. In the following years Aigle Azur also flew 737-300s and 737-400s before the airline switched to Airbus toward the end of the 2000s. Photos of an Aigle Azur 737 therefore almost always date from the 2000s.

How to recognize Aigle Azur

The last livery, which stayed in service until the end, shows a white fuselage with blue “AIGLE AZUR” titles and a tail with clouds against an azure sky across which an eagle flies. Older photos show earlier variants of the design; the first postwar Aigle Azur flew propeller aircraft in a livery all its own.

The registration gives you certainty. Aigle Azur aircraft were registered in France and carry F- in front of the letter sequence. Through the registration you can trace where an aircraft flew before and where it went after 2019. How airlines change their look is explained in When airlines change their design.

Aigle Azur today: traces for spotters

No Aigle Azur has flown since September 2019. The aircraft were returned to lessors and in some cases keep flying with other airlines. Traffic between France and Algeria has since been shared by other airlines, above all Air Algérie. If you photograph at Orly, you therefore see the successors on the Algeria routes on the same runways; you will also find more on Algeria’s airlines at Tassili Airlines. Before you unpack your camera at French airports, read the notes on photographing at French airports.

Common mix-ups

• Treating the Aigle Azur of 1946 and the one of 2019 as the same – the late airline goes back to Lucas Aviation of 1970 and only took over the name.
• Taking Aigle Azur for an Algerian airline – it was a French company based at Orly, even though Algeria was the core business.
• Taking Aigle Azur for a low-cost airline – it flew as a classic scheduled airline with a frequent flyer program and codeshares.
• Taking the A330 for a new aircraft – both aircraft came from the Air Berlin fleet.
• Confusing Aigle Azur with Azul – despite the similar sound and the shared major shareholder Neeleman, they were two separate airlines.

Conclusion

Aigle Azur is an airline with two lives. The first flew in the postwar years with the Ju 52, DC-3 and Stratoliner as far as Indochina; the second turned a small regional airline into an important carrier between France and Algeria. With HNA, Neeleman and the A330s it ventured into long-haul – and failed in 2019 through lack of money and quarrels among its owners. For spotters what remains is an airline that is easy to place in photos thanks to the cloud tail, the Airbus fleet and the F- registration.