Transavia France

Paris Orly is firmly in green hands: since Air France consolidated its Paris flights at Charles de Gaulle in March 2026, Transavia France has shaped operations at the second Paris airport. For spotters, the French low-cost airline is doubly interesting. For one, because it looks confusingly like the Dutch Transavia. And then, because its fleet is changing generations right now – the Boeing 737-800 is making way for the Airbus A320neo, with the A321neo joining from 2027. Here you learn how to reliably identify Transavia France and where to catch it best.

Transavia France at a glance

Transavia France is Air France’s low-cost airline and thus part of the Air France-KLM group. It was founded on November 14, 2006, as a joint venture of Air France and the Dutch Transavia, with Air France holding a clear majority from the start. The first scheduled flight departed on May 12, 2007, from Paris Orly to Porto. For a long time the airline operated as transavia.com France; with the rebrand in 2015 the “.com” was dropped.

In the first years Transavia France was barely allowed to fly domestic French routes – domestic connections were reserved for Air France. That changed with an agreement with the pilots’ union in 2020. From November 2020, Transavia France took over its first domestic routes, such as from Nantes to Marseille, Toulouse and Nice or from Orly to Biarritz.

The big turning point came in 2026: on March 29, Air France withdrew its Paris flights to Charles de Gaulle. Since then Transavia France has been the group’s airline at Orly and also flies the heavily demanded domestic routes to Nice, Marseille and Toulouse from there. In 2024 the airline carried around 14 million passengers.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code TO: appears in the flight number on the departure board, boarding pass and flight plan.
• ICAO code TVF: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on most flight trackers.
• Callsign FRANCE SOLEIL: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

That Transavia France has its own callsign is no coincidence. At airports served by both Transavia airlines, two crews with the callsign “TRANSAVIA” would be an invitation to misunderstandings. Why flight number and callsign often look different is explained in the article Callsign vs. flight number. The basics of the two code systems are in IATA and ICAO codes explained.

Transavia France or Transavia?

For passengers it hardly matters who operates the flight – booking, website and onboard product run under the same brand. For your logbook, though, the difference is decisive.

Feature	Transavia France	Transavia
Home country	France	Netherlands
Owner	Air France	KLM
Main base	Paris Orly	Amsterdam Schiphol
IATA / ICAO	TO / TVF	HV / TRA
Callsign	FRANCE SOLEIL	TRANSAVIA
Registration	F-	PH-
Airbus transition	A320neo since 2024, A321neo from 2027	A321neo since 2024, A320neo later

In practice: the registration decides. A green 737 with F- is French, one with PH- is Dutch. How registrations are structured is covered in the article Understanding aircraft registrations, and the country prefixes at a glance are under Aircraft country codes.

The fleet: from Boeing to Airbus

Until early 2024, Transavia France was a pure Boeing airline. The Boeing 737-800 was the only type for years – a typical low-cost recipe with one aircraft type and one cabin class. With the Air France-KLM group’s big order from Airbus, the switch to the A320neo family began.

Type	Status (fall 2026)	Spotter tip
Boeing 737-800	just under 70 aircraft, number falling	Still the most common type – but rarer every year
Airbus A320neo	a good 30 aircraft, more deliveries under way	In service since January 2024, growing steadily
Airbus A321neo	on order, first aircraft announced for March 2027	Five aircraft announced by summer 2027

Transavia France took delivery of its first A320neo on January 10, 2024, and five days later the first scheduled flight went to Porto – of all places the destination where everything began in 2007. Since then the Airbuses have arrived in steady succession: in July 2026, according to available fleet data, the fleet comprised 31 A320neos and 67 Boeing 737-800s, 98 aircraft in total.

The next step is the larger A321neo. According to an announcement from September 2026, the first aircraft is planned for March 2027, with four more following by the summer 2027 schedule. The airline sees the type as the most important means of cutting CO₂ emissions and noise in the short term. The seat count for the French A321neo had not been published at press time. The manufacturer of the previous fleet is Boeing.

737-800 or A320neo? How to tell them apart

Both types are about the same size and wear the same colors. That is exactly why Transavia France is a good school for learning to tell Airbus and Boeing apart – length doesn’t help here, but details do.

The quickest look goes to the engines: you can spot the flattened underside of the 737 nacelle even in photos from a long distance. On the A320neo, by contrast, the large, round engines of the new generation stand out. More features for type identification are collected in the article Recognizing aircraft types for beginners.

How to recognize Transavia France

The basic look is quickly described: white fuselage, lots of green and the lowercase “transavia” titles. Since the rebrand in 2015, green has been the defining color; before that, blue also played a role. In November 2025 the airline presented a further revised livery, carried first by its 22nd A320neo with the registration F-HXSX. In the coming years you will therefore see several variants of the Transavia colors side by side – a nice topic for comparison photos.

For registrations, patterns help: older 737-800s carry registrations like F-GZHB or F-GZHG, newer Boeings such as F-HTVC or F-HTVF. The Airbuses come with F-H registrations like F-HXSX. Special liveries are rare at Transavia France – if one turns up, it is worth the trip. How to find such one-offs is shown in the article Finding special liveries.

Bases and network

Transavia France works with one large main base and several regional bases where aircraft are stationed overnight:

• Paris Orly: home since 2007 and by far the place with the most traffic. Since 2026, more than half of the departures there are Transavia France.
• Lyon and Nantes: bases since 2010, expanded in 2018.
• Montpellier: its own base since spring 2020.
• Marseille (since 2023) and Bordeaux (since 2024): pure aircraft bases.

The network ranges from domestic routes through Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece to North Africa and the Middle East. New destinations are added every year – for summer 2026, for example, Sarajevo and Pisa from Orly as well as new connections from Lyon, Nantes, Montpellier and Marseille.

Experiencing Transavia France as a spotter

The best address is clearly Paris Orly. Since Air France’s withdrawal, Transavia France has shaped the picture there, and the mix of 737-800s and A320neos is ideal for photographing both types side by side. Find out locally which publicly accessible areas there are, and plan with the runway direction in use and the sun position in mind.

At the regional bases in Lyon, Nantes, Montpellier, Marseille and Bordeaux, too, Transavia France is a fixture. And at vacation destinations on the Mediterranean and in North Africa you often meet the green jets next to easyJet, Volotea, Vueling and Ryanair – good opportunities for comparison photos of different low-cost fleets. More inspiration for trips is given by the overview of the best spotting locations in Europe.

Orly in transition

For the group, the reorganization in Paris is a clear break: Air France concentrates on the Charles de Gaulle hub with connecting traffic and long-haul, while Transavia France takes over Orly with point-to-point flights. On the route to Toulouse, Transavia France has flown up to nine times a day with the A320neo since late March 2026, to Nice up to eight times.

For you this means: Orly has changed its face. Where the blue-white-red Air France jets of the domestic fleet used to stand, green dominates today. Anyone with old Orly photos in the archive already owns a piece of aviation history.

Common mix-ups

• Equating Transavia France and Transavia – registration (F- or PH-) and ICAO code (TVF or TRA) separate the two airlines.
• Thinking TO is a country code – IATA codes are pure airline identifiers.
• Thinking Transavia France is a SkyTeam member – only Air France and KLM belong to the alliance.
• Confusing the A320neo and A321neo – until 2027 Transavia France flies only the shorter A320neo.
• Expecting the callsign “TRANSAVIA” – on TVF flights you hear “FRANCE SOLEIL” on the radio.
• Taking over old fleet numbers – with every Airbus delivery, the ratio between 737 and A320neo shifts.

Conclusion

Transavia France is long since more than an offshoot of the Dutch Transavia. Since 2026 the airline has been the defining force at Paris Orly, operates bases from Lyon to Bordeaux and is in the middle of the switch from Boeing to Airbus. For spotters that means: the 737-800 gets rarer year after year, the A320neo and the new livery increase, and in 2027 a third type arrives with the A321neo. If you note registration and ICAO code, you capture this transition cleanly.