Air France: 1933-Formation, International Reach, Concorde 1st Flight - Essay Sample

Introduction

Air France constitutes an international airline in France, which initially attained formulation in the year 1933 (Gudmundsson, 2018). Currently, the airline offers services in the entire globe due to its remarkable connection with other airlines in the world. Air France deems to be the first to fly the supersonic Concorde with British Airways.

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On May 17, in the year 1933, four airlines merged to formulate a national airline system through negotiations with the government. On August 30, the combination of the four airlines joined with another line to constitute Air France (Gudmundsson, 2018). Before the commencement of World War II, Air France composed a considerable network of air transport in Europe. On October 11, 1945, the company of Air France significantly established to have been devastated by the World War leading to it narrowing its services of travel between London and Paris (Gudmundsson, 2018). On June 16, 1948, Air France was incorporated in the act of parliament, leading to a change in its ownership mechanisms. The company transferred most of its shares to the government of France, leading to 70% company ownership by the government.

On June 25, in the year 1946, the first transatlantic flight attained perpetration by Air France to New York City. In the following decade, the routes of Air France expanded substantially, leading to the company serving 200 cities and 80 countries in the 21st century (Bouwer, 2019). In the year 1974, Air France formulated a global hub in the international airport of Roissy Charles de Gaulle, portrayed as new during the period.

Towards the end of the 20th century, a remarkable movement commenced the processes of airline privatization. In 2002, the privatization program concerning Air France started after the French government agreed to relinquish the majority of its shares (Bouwer, 2019). One of the world's largest air carriers KLM Group- Air France, the accrued establishment in the year 2004 after the acquisition of KLM airline by Air France.

Concorde Aircraft

Concorde, established as the commercial first supersonic passenger aircraft, attained joint manufacturing by the aircraft designers of France and Great Britain. Concorde executed a first transatlantic crossing flight in the year 1973 (Xu, 2018). Concorde accrued inauguration scheduling it as the first supersonic passenger aircraft in 1976, and its operations were significant in Air France and British Airways. In May 1976, both airlines added routes of flight to Washington D.C., as well as New York City in the year 1977. Other direction attained incorporation to Air France, and British Airways routes temporarily (Xu, 2018). However, Concorde flights achieved execution in a chattered manner all over the world in the routes connected to primary service providers, including Air France and British Airways. Concorde offered services that accrued considerable limitations from the noise and operational expense of the aircraft (Xu, 2018). Financial losses made the British Airways and Air France cut their traveling route with New York City. Air France ceased the operations about Concorde aircraft in May 2003 and in October the same year by the British Airways. In the period, only 14 of the Concorde aircraft attained servicing.

On July 25, in the year 2000, Concord operational route from Paris to New York City attained afflictions from engine failure, which occurred a few moments after takeoff. The engine failure resulted from the burst tire debris, which caused the fuel tank to burst and rupture into considerable flames (Liu, 2018). The crashing of the aircraft occurred in a small restaurant and hotel. All the 109 individuals on board died, who constituted nine crew members and 100 passengers. The crash also killed four people who were on the ground.

Air France Flight 4590

Flight 4590 deemed to be a charter flight connecting New York and Paris. The aircraft established as an Air France Concorde, which constituted a registration number of F-BTSC. The considerable value of the aircraft passengers represented Germany tourists. On July 25, the year 2000, at approximately 4:43 PM, the plane commenced takeoff in the airport of Charles de Gaulle (Cusick, 2017). In the process of plane acceleration on the runway, ground observers perceived a fire on the left-wing of the plane. The aircraft portrayed left veering, and on the takeoff, two of the left-wing engines failed. The pilot was unable to climb more than 60 meters (200 feet) as a result of engine failure, and after around 90 seconds after the takeoff, another engine on the left side failed (Cusick, 2017). On failure of the third engine, the aircraft dropped from the sky and crashed into a hotel and small restaurant, killing all the 109 individuals who were on board.

After the crash, Air France grounded the Concorde’s establishment and instructed to have it remain closed immediately. In August, British Airways also halted the flight of its Concorde aircraft. It needed severe scrutiny, and enough time was granted to the investigating panel. From the investigation conducted by the French government of the causing factor of the crush, it determined that Concorde cruised over a metal strip, which was on the runway leading to the blowing out of the tire (Cusick, 2017). The environmental uniqueness of the airport led to an inadequate database for FOD imaging. A proposal was made to optimize the detection of metallic materials on the runway as it was the major cause of aircraft damage.

References

Bouwer, J., Peeters, P., Bongaerts, R., & Eijgelaar, E. (2019). Case Study: CSR at Air France-KLM. In Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility in Tourism (pp. 181-189). Springer, Cham.

Cusick, S. K., Cortes, A. I., & Rodrigues, C. C. (2017). Commercial aviation safety. McGraw Hill Professional.

Gudmundsson, S. V. (2018). Mergers vs. Alliances: The Air France-KLM Story. Alliances: The Air France-KLM Story.

Liu, K., Liu, D., & Wang, A. (2018). Two-dimensional Particle Tracking Velocimetry and Flame Front Detection. In 2018 AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference (p. 0490).

Xu, H., Han, Z., Feng, S., Zhou, H., & Fang, Y. (2018). Foreign object debris material recognition based on convolutional neural networks. Eurasip Journal on Image and Video Processing, 2018(1), 21.