New books on Air France and SABENA

Hi,

Günter Endres has written and published through European Airlines Rob Mulder two new books on two European Airlines: Air France and SABENA.

AIR FRANCE:

Now one of the world’s leading airlines, Air France had its origins in the major restructuring of the French air transport industry through the merger of Air-Orient, Air Union, Société Générale de Transports Aérien (SGTA) and Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne (CIDNA), which became the Société Central pour l’Exploitation de Lignes Aériennes (SCELA). This was renamed Air France on 30 August 1933, following the takeover of the assets of the bankrupt Aéropostale. The above airlines themselves represented the consolidation of a crowded field of pioneering companies that emerged immediately after the First World War, both in France and in French possessions overseas, taking advantage of a fledgling but burgeoning aircraft industry.

SABENA:

Unusually, the beginnings and early development of Belgian aviation was not to be found in Europe, but in its colony in Central Africa, where Société Anonyme Belge d’Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne, always known as Sabena, went on to establish an extensive network of scheduled services within the Belgian Congo, and also inaugurated the Ligne impériale between Belgium and the Congo. A limited European network was also flown, as was a North American service after the World War Two. The loss of the Congo, which became independent in 1960, and with it, some two-thirds of its income, was a hefty blow from which it never fully recovered. An ill-fated alliance finally forced it into bankruptcy in 2001.

Link to order the books: European Airlines