Air France was born on October 7, 1933, when five French airlines joined forces. They included Air Orient and what remained of the famous Aéropostale. Aéropostale pilots, among them the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, had opened airmail routes over the South Atlantic and the Andes. After World War II the French state took ownership. From Paris, Air France then built a network that reached around the world.
In 1959 it introduced the Caravelle, one of the first jet airliners to succeed. In 1974 it moved to a new hub at Charles de Gaulle, an airport where it links many flights. It launched Concorde with British Airways in 1976, flying faster than sound to New York and Rio de Janeiro. It took over the French carriers Air Inter and UTA in the 1990s.
In 2000 it helped start SkyTeam, an alliance in which airlines share routes, with Delta, Aeromexico, and Korean Air. The 2004 merger with KLM created Air France-KLM, then the world's largest airline group by revenue. Both brands kept their own names and home airports. It later added low-cost Transavia France. Concorde retired in 2003 and the A380 in 2020. Air France still flies one of Europe's biggest long-haul networks.