The companies headquarters are at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle
Airport near Paris (headquarters now used by Air France-KLM).
They transported 43.3 million passengers and
earned 12.53 billion Euro between April 2001 and March 2002.
Air France's subsidiary, Régional, operates regional jet and
turboprop flights within Europe.
Air France took over the Dutch company KLM in May 2004,
resulting in the creation of Air France-KLM. Air France-KLM is
the largest airline company in the world in terms of operating
revenues, and the third-largest in the world (largest in
Europe) in terms of passengers-kilometers.
Air France-KLM is part of the SkyTeam Alliance with Delta Air
Lines, Aeroméxico, Korean Air, CSA Czech Airlines, Alitalia,
Northwest Airlines, Aeroflot, and Continental Airlines. Both
Air France and KLM continue to fly under their distinct brand
names. 
In 2004, Air France was ranked first Airline in Europe having carried 18% of the european passengers.
The company fleet consists of around 240 aircraft, 100 from Boeing (mainly long haul) and 141 from Airbus.
The airline had extensive routes across Europe, but also to French colonies in northern Africa and elsewhere.
The company was nationalized in 1946, and Compagnie Nationale Air France was created by a parliamentary act on June 16, 1948.
The government held 70% of the new company and still (mid-2002) holds a 54% stake in the airline. On August 4, 1948, Max Hymans was appointed president of Air France.
During his thirteen yearsat the helm, he implemented a modernisation policy based on jet aircraft, specifically the Sud Aviation Caravelle and the Boeing 707.
In 1949 the company was one of the founders of SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques).
The airline used the De Havilland Comet for a short while from 1953, but soon replaced them with Vickers Viscounts and in 1959 the company started widespread use of the elegant twin-jet Sud Aviation Caravelle.
It graduated to the use of Boeing aircraft, but as a national European carrier it became committed to Airbus designs from 1974.
In 1976, the airline started operating the Concorde
SST supersonic airliner on the Paris-Charles de Gaulle to New
York route as well as a number of other routes (those other
routes were dropped in 1982).
It flew the route Paris to New York City in 3
hours and 20 minutes, at about twice the speed of sound.
On 12 January 1990, the operations of all government owned
airlines, Air France, Air Inter, Air Charter and UTA, were
merged into the Air France Group.
A new holding company Groupe Air France was
set up by decree on 25 July 1994 and implemented on 1
September 1994. It had majority shareholdings in Air France
and Air Inter (renamed Air France Europe).
In 1997 Air France Europe was fully absorbed
into Air France. On 10 February 1999 the French government
partially privatised the airline on the Paris stock exchange.
It became a founder member of the Skyteam Alliance in June
2000.
The five Air France Concordes were withdrawn from use on 31
May 2003 as a result of insufficient demand following the 2000
accident, along with higher fuel and maintenance costs.
British Airways followed suit a few months later - their last
Concordes flying on 24 October 2003. Concorde F-BVFA was
transferred to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly,
Virginia, an annex of the National Air & Space Museum.
F-BVFB was given to a German museum, F-BTSD to
the "Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace" in Paris, while F-BVFC was
returned to its place of manufacture in Toulouse (France) at
the Airbus factory.
On September 30, 2003, Air France and Netherlands-based KLM
(Royal Dutch Airlines), announced the merging of the two
airlines, the new company to be known as Air France-KLM.
The merger became reality on May 5, 2004.
Former Air France shareholders own 81% of the new firm (44%
owned by the French government, 37% by private shareholders),
while former KLM shareholders hold the rest.
The French government's share of Air France
was reduced
from 54.4 per cent (of the former Air France) to
44 per cent (of the current Air France-KLM), thus in effect
privatizing Air France.
In December 2004 the French state sold
18.4% of its equity stake in the Air France-KLM Group,
reducing its stake to just under 20%.
