ASL Airlines France

In the evening on a remote stand at Roissy, a windowless Boeing 737 with a French registration, and next to it a perfectly ordinary 737 with a passenger cabin – both belong to the same airline. ASL Airlines France is one of France’s most unusual carriers: it flies cargo at night and vacationers and family visitors by day, and its history goes back to French airmail flying. Many spotters still know it as Europe Airpost. Here you will learn where the airline comes from, what it flies today and how to attribute its aircraft reliably.

ASL Airlines France at a glance

ASL Airlines France is a French airline with two pillars: cargo and passengers. The company headquarters is in Tremblay-en-France, the operating base at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. From there, both the freighters and some of the passenger jets operate.

On the cargo side, the airline serves express and parcel customers, including the European network of FedEx Express, plus mail flights for La Poste and charter cargo on demand. On the passenger side, there are three lines of business: classic charter flights for tour operators, flights on behalf of other airlines – in industry jargon ACMI or wet lease, meaning aircraft with crew – and its own scheduled flights, mainly between France and Algeria.

The airline belongs to ASL Aviation Holdings, headquartered in Swords near Dublin. Its best-known sisters are ASL Airlines Belgium, the former TNT Airways from Liège, and ASL Airlines Ireland, the former Air Contractors. Unlike the two sisters, which mainly operate in cargo, ASL France is the group’s company that also carries passengers on a larger scale.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code 5O: appears in the flight numbers of scheduled and charter flights, so on departure boards and tickets.
• ICAO code FPO: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers – this is the code you search for.
• Callsign FRENCH POST: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

The ICAO code and callsign are small time capsules. “FPO” and “FRENCH POST” date from the time when the airline belonged to the French post office and flew letters and parcels through the night. When the airline was renamed in 2015, ASL kept both. So you still hear the legacy on the radio today – even when a 737-800 with vacationers on board is on its way.

From airmail flying to ASL: the history

The name “Aéropostale” has a special ring in France. The historic Compagnie Générale Aéropostale flew mail between Europe, Africa and South America from the end of the 1920s and merged into the newly founded Air France in 1933. It has little to do directly with today’s airline – but the name was deliberately revived later.

The actual roots of ASL France lie in the late 1980s. At that time, the circle around the domestic airline Air Inter founded the company Intercargo Service (ICS), which flew mail and cargo between French cities at night. The first aircraft were sturdy Vickers Vanguard turboprops, and Boeing 737s joined toward the end of the 1980s. In the early 1990s, the Air France group took control, and the company was henceforth called Aéropostale. At first several partners were involved; from the mid-1990s it was owned half by the Air France group and half by the French post office.

In these years, the fleet’s typical double life emerged. By day, the aircraft flew passengers on behalf of Air France and Air Inter; at night, they carried mail for La Poste. Boeing 737s in quick-change configuration made that possible: the seats could be quickly removed and reinstalled on pallets. In addition, Aéropostale also deployed Boeing 727s, Airbus A300s and ATR 72s.

Around the turn of the millennium, Air France and La Poste parted ways. The post office took over the flight operation with its 737 fleet and continued the airline under the name Europe Airpost. Besides the mail flights, Europe Airpost expanded the charter business and flew vacationers for tour operators across Europe and around the Mediterranean.

In 2008, Ireland’s ASL group – then still closely tied to Air Contractors – completed the takeover. Europe Airpost initially kept its name, livery and callsign. In 2015, ASL then unified its airlines under a common brand: Europe Airpost became ASL Airlines France. Since then, scheduled flights to Algeria have been added, and with the switch to converted 737-800 freighters, the fleet became much younger.

The fleet: all Boeing 737

As varied as the lines of business are, the fleet is just as uniform: ASL France flies only Boeing 737s. The interesting part lies in the variants. Figures on fleet size vary depending on the source; as of 2025/2026, it is about 14 to 18 aircraft.

Type	Role	Capacity per ASL	Spotter tip
Boeing 737-800BCF	Freighter	about 22 t, 11.5 pallet positions	Backbone of the cargo fleet, converted passenger jets without windows
Boeing 737-400SF	Freighter	about 20 t, 10.5 positions	Older Classic generation with smaller engines
Boeing 737-800	Passengers	Cabin depending on configuration	Charter, wet lease and Algeria scheduled flights
Boeing 737-700	Passengers	about 147 to 149 seats	Shorter NG version, much rarer

The 737-800BCF is a converted passenger jet. Boeing installs a large cargo door at the front left, seals the windows and reinforces the floor for pallets. The ASL group has ordered several dozen of these conversions for its airlines; ASL France is among the customers. The 737-400SF is also a conversion, but based on the older Classic generation. The manufacturer of all types is Boeing.

For passenger aircraft, ASL France relies on the 737 Next Generation. The 737-800 is the standard type for charter and scheduled service, while the shorter 737-700 is rather rare in France – Europe Airpost was one of the first French operators of this version at the time.

Former types

Many types from the long history no longer fly for the airline today. They include the Vickers Vanguards of the ICS beginnings, Boeing 727s, Airbus A300s and ATR 72s from the Aéropostale era, as well as the Boeing 737-300, which was in service for many years in quick-change configuration – some fleet lists still show one example to this day. Photos with the other types are archive pictures – often still in the livery of Aéropostale or Europe Airpost.

How to recognize ASL Airlines France

Since 2015, the aircraft have worn the ASL group’s common livery with the titles of the respective airline. But the livery is not enough for attribution: ASL Belgium and ASL Ireland use a very similar look, and aircraft flying for customers can look different. Two features are more reliable: the French registration with F- and the ICAO code FPO on the tracker.

Within the fleet, you tell the variants apart by a few details. The rule of thumb: windows mean passengers, no windows mean cargo. It gets harder when asking which generation is in front of you.

The differences between Classic and Next Generation are explained in detail in the guide Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart. You can find general freighter features under Recognizing cargo aircraft.

Spotting ASL Airlines France

The surest address is Paris-Charles de Gaulle. That is where the airline is at home, where the freighters depart for the express network and where many passenger flights begin too. How to find your way around France’s biggest airport is shown in the guide Plane spotting at Paris-CDG.

You also meet the passenger jets at French airports with connections to Algeria. According to the airline’s schedule, these include Lyon-Saint Exupéry, Lille, Clermont-Ferrand, Saint-Étienne and EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg – the latter is easy to reach for spotters from southern Germany and Switzerland. Occasionally there are also flights from Paris-Orly. On these routes, you often meet ASL France alongside Air Algérie, which makes for a nice comparison.

In Germany, ASL Airlines France is not an everyday guest. Chances exist with charter flights, with flights on behalf of other airlines and with freighters in the European express network. If you are searching specifically, keep an eye on the code FPO on the tracker.

Because the freighters fly mainly in the dark, the guide Photographing aircraft at night is worth a look. For background on the express business, the article on the integrators DHL, FedEx and UPS helps, and the difference between charter and scheduled service is explained in Charter flights and scheduled flights.

Common mix-ups

• Mixing up ASL France with ASL Belgium or ASL Ireland – the livery is similar, the registration decides: F- for France, OO- for Belgium, EI- for Ireland.
• Reading 5O as the number 50 – the IATA code consists of the digit 5 and the letter O.
• Taking Europe Airpost for a different airline – it is the same flight operation with the same codes, just under a different name and owner.
• Taking every windowless 737 for a 737-800BCF – the 737-400SF is shorter and belongs to the older Classic generation.
• Equating the historic Aéropostale with the Aéropostale of the 1990s – the airmail pioneers of the 1920s merged into Air France; the name was only revived later.
• Equating the flight number with the operating airline – on wet-lease operations, only the callsign FRENCH POST reveals who is really flying.

You can learn more about reading registrations in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

Conclusion

ASL Airlines France is an airline with a double life: cargo at night, passengers by day, and all of it with Boeing 737s. Behind the sober group name lies the history of French airmail flying, from Intercargo Service through Aéropostale and Europe Airpost to Ireland’s ASL group. If you note the registration and ICAO code and tell freighters from passenger jets and Classic from Next Generation, you get several exciting entries for your collection from this airline.