Aéromaritime

Douglas DC-6B
Founded	1966 (1966)
Ceased operations	October 1991 (1991-10)
Hubs	Paris–Le Bourget
Parent company	UTA (1966–1991)
Headquarters	Paris, France

Compagnie Aéromaritime d'Affrètement S.A., in short Aéromaritime, was a French charter airline established in 1966 by independent air carrier UTA and which supported the parent company for a quarter of a century. Aéromaritime ceased flying in 1991 after it had already transferred its operations within the European continent to Air France subsidiary Air Charter.

History

Aéromaritime was established by the independent French airline UTA in 1966. The task was to handle inclusive tour services and general passenger and cargo work. Flight operations began on January 11 of the following year with a few Douglas DC-6s but were discontinued in December.^[1] The company remained inactive until early 1971. When restarted it held a contract to operate Super Guppy (AS-201) aircraft owned by Airbus consortium and used to transport oversize components of the Airbus A300B between the factories. From the mid-1970s this became the only activity up to managing four ships of the capacious four-engine aircraft.^[2] In 1988, the airline underwent considerable expansion with the reactivation of passenger operations. A number of European destinations were reached, many on Nouvelles Frontieres behalf, using Boeing 737-300 prominently. This was supposed to be UTA's aim to establish a network of low-cost flights in Europe. In the event, these plans were scuppered by a long-running, bitter industrial relations|industrial dispute between UTA's management and the trade union|unions representing the majority of pilots at Aéromaritime as well as at UTA itself. The dispute was about the introduction of new, lower pay scales at Aéromaritime to prepare it for the competition it was likely to face at the hands of Europe's new breed of much lower cost, aggressively expanding independent airlines (Air Europe at that time). It lasted from the end of 1988 until October 1989 and resulted in the grounding of both Aéromaritime and UTA during that period. UTA's plans for a European network were also overtaken by its subsequent merger with Air France (already a 54,8% shareholder).^{[3][circular reference]}

In April 1990, a short-lived corporate name change to "Aéromaritime International" was made. In fact, in anticipation of the merger, between 1989 and 1990 all Aéromaritime European operations were transferred to Air Charter, a subsidiary of Air France. Aéromaritime ceased operations in October 1991 and was dissolved shortly thereafter.^[2]

Fleet

Apart from a few early Douglas DC-6s, the airline never owned any aircraft of its own; all operations were always conducted using the remaining UTA fleet. Nevertheless, over the years, Caravelles and six Boeing 737s were used, until the more capacious two Boeing 767s, Douglas DC-10s, and four Boeing 747s were made available by the parent company.

References

Further reading

• Wickstead, Maurice, French wings over five continents: The story of UTA - Part 2 (The merger of TAI & UAT and into the jet Age, 1962–92), The Aviation Historian, 2023, ISSN 2051-1930.
• UTA (in French language). "Icare" magazine, nos. 115 & 117