| Airline: | Air Liberté |
| Iata: | IJ |
| Icao: | LIB |
| Callsign: | LIBERTE |
| Hubs: | Orly Airport |
Air Liberté (later known as Air Lib) was a French airline founded in July 1987. It was headquartered in Rungis.[1] Air Lib was headquartered in Orly Airport Building 363 in Paray-Vieille-Poste.[2] [3]
Air Liberté began operations in April 1988 with a leased MD-83. It mainly operated to destinations in European and Mediterranean holiday resorts, however it had some intercontinental routes. In 1991, Air Liberte published a joint timetable with French air carrier Minerve which was operating flights to San Francisco and Papeete, Tahiti as well as to Pointe-à-Pitre and Fort-de-France in the Caribbean at the time.[4] A route to Montreal was inaugurated in 1992,[5] and Réunion and the Caribbean were also served by the airline. Unsuccessful routes included one from Toulouse to Dakar and London, which were scrapped in a conflict over slot allocations at Orly Airport. 1996 saw a new route to Nice, and in May the route network of Euralair was taken on. Around 1996, the airline had a fleet of 5 Boeing 737-200 airplanes, 8 McDonnell Douglas MD-83 planes and 5 McDonnell Douglas DC-10 planes.
1996 also brought with it financial distress. The airline lost 1 billion francs ($181 million) that year, and in 1997 British Airways acquired 70% of the shareholding. At this time, British Airways brought Air Liberté together with TAT and inaugurated them under one management. Nouvelair was born out of Air Liberté's subsidiary in Tunisia, Air Liberté Tunisie. On 5 May 2000, BA sold Air Liberté to a partnership between Taitbout Antibes and Swissair.
On 25 March 2001 AOM French Airlines merged with Air Liberté, the airline retaining the name "Air Liberté".[6] On 22 September 2001 the airline was renamed Air Lib[7] But in October, Swissair went bankrupt, unable to make all scheduled payments. The French Government then granted a loan of €30.5 million to the company.
Despite government aid, the airline accumulated debts of €120 million and was forced to declare bankruptcy in August 2002. The government then ordered the implementation of a new restructuring plan before the end of the year. Several projects were considered without result, and the company was liquidated on 17 February 2003. As a result, no other competing international-level full-service French airline had appeared, leaving only Air France (now controlled by Air France–KLM) as a de facto monopoly until French Bee was founded in 2016.
Air Liberté operated the following aircraft during operations:[8]
| Image | Aircraft | Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbus A300-600R | 2 | ||
| Airbus A310-200 | 2 | ||
| Airbus A310-300 | 1 | Owned by ILFC; later crashed operating Yemenia Flight 626 | |
| ATR 42-300 | 7 | ||
| ATR 72-202 | 3 | ||
| Boeing 737-200 | 3 | ||
| Fokker 100 | 12 | ||
| McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 | 5 | ||
| McDonnell Douglas MD-82 | 5 | ||
| McDonnell Douglas MD-83 | 13 | ||
| Total | 53 |