The "Compagnie Générale Aéropostale" was a pioneering French aviation company.
In 1918 in Toulouse the company was founded by Pierre-Georges Latécoère, under the name of "Lignes Aeriennes Latécoère" also called "The line". Latécoère envisioned an air route connecting France to the French colonies in Africa and to South America. The company's activities were specialized in air-borne postal services, but also for passengers.
On December 25, 1918, the company began serving its first route between Toulouse and Barcelona in Spain.In February 1919 the line was extended to Casablanca. By 1925 it extended to Dakar, where the mail was shipped by steamer to South America. Between 1921 and 1927 the "Line" operated as Compagnie générale d'entreprises aéronautiques (CGEA).
In November 1927 regular flights between Rio de Janeiro and Natal were started. Expansion then continued to Paraguay,and in July 1929 a regularly scheduled route across the Andes Mountains to Santiago, Chile, were started, later extending down to Tierra del Fuego on the southern part of Chile.
In April 1927 Latécoère, having troubles with its planes, damaged due to long flights to South America, has decided to sell 93% of his business to another Brazilian-based French businessman named Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont.
On that basis, Bouilloux-Lafont then changed the name into "Compagnie Générale Aéropostale", better known by the shorter name "Aéropostale".
Finally, on May 12-13, 1930, the trip across the South Atlantic by air finally took place: A Latécoère 28 mail plane fitted with floats and a 650 horsepower (480 kW) Hispano-Suiza engine made the first nonstop flight. Aéropostale pilot Jean Mermoz flew 3,058 kilometers from Dakar to Natal in 19 hours 35 minutes, with his plane holding 122 kilograms of mail.After a scandal involving postal payments from the French government to Aéropostale, the company was dissolved in 1932, and merged with a number of other aviation companies (Air Orient, Société Générale de Transport Aérien, Air Union, and Compagnie Internationale de Navigation) to create Air France.
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