XL Airways France

If you stood at the fence at Paris-Charles de Gaulle between 2012 and 2019, you know the picture: an Airbus A330 with the big “XL” abbreviation, headed for Pointe-à-Pitre, Punta Cana or New York. XL Airways France was one of the French leisure airlines that wanted to get into long-haul flying on the cheap – and one of the names that vanished from the sky in fall 2019. Here you can find out how Star Europe became XL Airways, what defined the fleet, how to recognize XL in old photos and how the story ended.

XL Airways France at a glance

XL Airways France was a French leisure airline based in Tremblay-en-France, right on the grounds of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. Its base was there as well. The company was founded in August 1995 by Cédric Pastour under the name Star Europe; the company name behind it, Société de Transport Aérien Régional, yielded the abbreviation STAR. The first flight followed in December 1995.

Over almost a quarter of a century, its profile changed significantly. In the early years, the airline mainly flew charter flights for tour operators, including big French names such as Club Med, Jet Tours, Kuoni and Nouvelles Frontières. From 2012, low-cost scheduled long-haul flights moved into the spotlight, and from 2016 XL was a pure long-haul airline with Airbus A330s.

The airline was certified under the IATA safety standard IOSA and was named France’s best leisure airline at the Skytrax World Airline Awards in July 2018 – a good year before the end.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code SE: appeared before the flight numbers and on tickets. It dates from the Star Europe era and was kept until the end.
• ICAO code SEU, XLF from 2012: as part of the 2012 realignment, the ICAO code changed from SEU to XLF, matching the brand name.
• Callsign STARWAY: the radio callsign, too, recalled the airline’s origins as Star Europe and Star Airlines until the end.

It is typical that codes and callsigns do not always change along with a rename. So on old schedules with an SE flight number, it can be either Star Airlines or XL Airways – the date is what matters. How IATA and ICAO codes are assigned is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes.

From Star Europe to XL Airways

Star Europe and Star Airlines

The beginnings were modest. Star Europe started with a Boeing 737-300, and shortly afterward two 737-400s joined, which the airline later sold to Jet Airways. The first headquarters was in Noisy-le-Grand, east of Paris – also because it had not yet been decided whether the airline would fly from Charles de Gaulle or from Orly.

In October 1997, Star Europe became Star Airlines. According to the French account, the reason for the name change was the risk of confusion with Eurostar, the train through the Channel Tunnel. From 1997, the airline flew the Airbus A320, which became the workhorse on medium-haul routes. Until 2005, the main shareholder was the tour operator Look Voyages, which at the time belonged to the Transat group – that is, to the circle of Canada’s Air Transat.

Part of the XL Leisure Group

From around 2005, the British XL Leisure Group was the main shareholder. The group included the British XL Airways, called Excel Airways until 2006, and a German sister. In November 2006, the group unified its brands: Star Airlines became XL Airways France. In 2007, a Boeing 737-800 appeared in the fleet for the first time, initially leased from XL Airways Germany.

On September 12, 2008, the XL Leisure Group collapsed – one of the biggest bankruptcies of a British travel group. The French airline was not directly affected: the Icelandic Straumur Investment Bank took over all of the capital, and XL Airways France kept flying.

The path to long-haul

As early as 2009, XL offered flights from Paris-CDG to New York. In the winter seasons around 2010 and 2011, the program ranged from the Caribbean through South America to Asia: destinations such as Punta Cana, Cancún, the Maldives, Phuket, Cape Verde, Dallas, Saint Lucia, Porlamar in Venezuela or Salvador da Bahia in Brazil were on the schedule, and in 2011 Kenya and summer flights to New York and Las Vegas were added. For that, XL needed widebodies – some its own, some leased at short notice.

In November 2012, the holding company X-Air Aviation, backed by the investor Beachside Capital, took over Straumur’s stake. That changed the strategy: away from pure charter, toward cheap scheduled long-haul flights. On November 30, 2012, the Airbus A330-300 F-HXLF arrived and initially flew to the Antilles. From May 2013, XL also connected Marseille directly with New York.

In 2014, the airline disputed an outstanding claim of more than 20 million euros with its owner. In the end, a court granted the company the right to take back the shares – XL then temporarily held 100 percent of its own capital.

2016: farewell to medium-haul

In 2016, XL drew a clear line. On medium-haul routes, low-cost airlines and charter competition were strong, and demand for destinations in Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey collapsed after terrorist attacks. The airline gave up medium-haul flying, and in December 2016 the last Boeing 737 left the fleet.

In the same month, Dreamjet Participations, the holding company of the business class airline La Compagnie, took over the XL group. Both airlines stayed independent but were marketed as a joint French long-haul group. After the merger, the group comprised six aircraft: four A330s from XL and two Boeing 757s from La Compagnie.

The final route network

In its last year of operation, XL served around 16 destinations. The routes to the French overseas territories and the Caribbean remained the core, supplemented by the US:

Region	Destinations (selection, as of 2019)	Note
France (mainland)	Paris-CDG (base), Lyon, Marseille, Nantes	Departures to the vacation destinations
Overseas territories	Pointe-à-Pitre, Fort-de-France, Saint-Denis (Réunion)	Strong competition from Air France, Corsair and Air Caraïbes
USA	New York-Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami	Partly seasonal only
Caribbean and Mexico	Punta Cana, Cancún, Varadero, Havana	Classic vacation destinations
Others	Tel Aviv, Jinan (China)	Tel Aviv seasonal

On the Antilles and Réunion routes, XL met a dense market: Corsair, Air Caraïbes and its sister French bee as well as Air Austral flew the same destinations. How charter and scheduled service differ and why leisure airlines switch between the two worlds is explained in Charter flights vs. scheduled flights.

The fleet: from the 737 to the A330

In its history, XL Airways France mainly flew types from Boeing and Airbus, supplemented by many aircraft leased at short notice for peak season. The overview is based on the available fleet lists:

Type	Period	Use and note
Boeing 737-300	1995–1996	Star Europe’s first aircraft
Boeing 737-400	1996–1997	Two aircraft, then sold to Jet Airways
Airbus A320	1997–2013	Medium-haul, eleven aircraft over the years
Boeing 737-800	2007–2016	Medium-haul, initially leased from XL Airways Germany
Airbus A310-300	2005–2006	One aircraft leased from Air Atlanta Icelandic
Airbus A330-300	2010–2019	First leased, F-HXLF in its own fleet from 2012
Airbus A340-300	2014	Briefly leased from Hi Fly
Airbus A330-200	until 2019	Backbone of the final years, three aircraft
Airbus A330-900	–	Two ordered in January 2019, never delivered

A330: the face of the final years

In August 2018, the fleet consisted of four aircraft with an average age of a good eleven years: three Airbus A330-200s with the registrations F-GRSQ, F-GSEU and F-HXXL as well as the A330-300 F-HXLF. In peak season, XL additionally leased an A330-200 from Portugal’s Hi Fly with the registration CS-TQP. The cabins were laid out for many seats: mostly in a 3-3-3 arrangement in economy, 2-3-2 in some rear rows. On long-haul flights, a hot meal was included at no extra charge, and entertainment ran on overhead screens and a streaming portal on board.

You recognize the -200 by its shorter fuselage; the -300 is clearly stretched. Both are twinjets – if you find XL pictures with four engines, you are looking at the briefly leased A340. How to reliably tell the A330 and A340 apart is shown in A330 or A340?. The manufacturer of both types is Airbus.

The A330neos that were never delivered

In January 2019, XL ordered two Airbus A330-900s, due to arrive in 2020. With the liquidation in fall 2019, that plan was done; no XL A330neo ever entered service. So if you see a picture of an A330-900 in XL colors, it is a rendering, not a spotter photo.

Leased aircraft as a spotter trap

Because XL liked to lease capacity seasonally, old photos show aircraft with other airlines’ registrations: the A310 from Air Atlanta Icelandic with an Icelandic TF- registration, A330-300s from Spanish and Portuguese leisure airlines or the A340 from Hi Fly. Such operations often run as a wet lease, that is, with a foreign crew – more on this in Wet lease explained.

The end in fall 2019

Summer 2019 was hard on French airlines. A few weeks before XL, Aigle Azur had already collapsed, and in the UK Thomas Cook Airlines went under at the end of September. At XL, the company cited major financial difficulties as the reason; added to that were strong competition on the leisure routes and a very small fleet.

The chronology moved fast:

• September 19, 2019: XL files for a court-supervised restructuring procedure and immediately stops selling tickets.
• September 23, 2019: The commercial court in Bobigny opens the procedure and gives shareholders a few days.
• End of September 2019: All flights are halted, the A330s stay on the ground.
• October 4, 2019: The court orders liquidation. The only formal offer – which would have taken over two aircraft and just under half of the roughly 570 employees – was not enough for the court.

In January 2020, the remaining assets were auctioned off, including the brand name and internet domains. No relaunch under the name XL Airways France followed. You can read more about the industry’s big collapses in the article Major airline bankruptcies in Europe.

How to recognize XL Airways France

You no longer meet XL live, but regularly in photos from the 2000s and 2010s. These features help with identification:

The surest feature, as so often, is the registration. Because three airlines flew under the XL name, only the country prefix tells you which company is meant. With the registration, you can also trace where an aircraft flew before and after. The article Understanding aircraft registrations covers the basics.

XL today: traces for spotters

The airline has disappeared, and others have taken over its routes. To the Caribbean and Réunion, mainly Air France, Corsair, Air Caraïbes, French bee and Air Austral fly today. The A330 type, on the other hand, you still see every day in Paris – if you want to know the spots around CDG, you will find them in the guide Plane spotting at Paris-Charles de Gaulle. Before you take photos in France, read the article on photographing at French airports.

Common mix-ups

• Equating XL Airways France with the British XL Airways – separate companies; the British one went under in 2008, the French one flew until 2019.
• Taking SE for a French country code – SE is the airline’s IATA code, derived from Star Europe.
• Expecting XLF on old schedules – until 2012, the ICAO code was SEU.
• Confusing XL and La Compagnie – both belonged to the same holding from 2016, but La Compagnie flew business class with Boeing 757s and later A321neos.
• Counting A340 photos as XL’s fleet – the A340 was only briefly leased from Hi Fly.

Conclusion

For almost 25 years, XL Airways France was a fixture of the French leisure market. From the small charter airline Star Europe with Boeing 737s, it grew via Star Airlines and the British XL group into a long-haul leisure airline with A330s that connected Paris with the Antilles, Réunion, the Caribbean and the US. Changing owners, tough competition and a small fleet made the airline vulnerable – in fall 2019, it was over. For spotters, XL remains a well-documented chapter that you can identify reliably by registration and type.