| Airline: | Air Liberté |
| Iata: | IJ |
| Icao: | LIB |
| Callsign: | LIBERTE |
| Hubs: | Orly Airport |
Air Liberté (later known as Air Lib) was a French airline founded in July 1987. It was headquartered in Rungis.[1] Air Lib was headquartered in Orly Airport Building 363 in Paray-Vieille-Poste.[2] [3]
Air Liberté began operations in April 1988 with a leased McDonnell Douglas MD-80. It mainly operated to destinations in European and Mediterranean holiday resorts, however it had some intercontinental routes. In 1991, Air Liberte published a joint timetable with French air carrier Minerve which was operating flights to San Francisco and Papeete, Tahiti as well as to Pointe-à -Pitre and Fort-de-France in the Caribbean at the time.[4] A route to Montreal was inaugurated in 1992,[5] and Réunion and the Caribbean were also served by the airline. Unsuccessful routes included one from Toulouse to Dakar and London, which were scrapped in a conflict over slot allocations at Orly Airport. 1996 saw a new route to Nice, and in May the route network of Euralair was taken on. Around 1996, the airline had a fleet of five Boeing 737-200s, eight McDonnell Douglas MD-83s and five McDonnell Douglas DC-10s.
1996 also brought with it financial distress. The airline lost 1 billion francs that year, and in 1997 British Airways acquired a 67% shareholding.[6] At this time, British Airways brought Air Liberté together with TAT and inaugurated them under one management. Nouvelair was born out of Air Liberté's subsidiary in Tunisia, Air Liberté Tunisie. On 5 May 2000, BA sold Air Liberté to a partnership between Taitbout Antibes and Swissair.
On 25 March 2001 AOM French Airlines merged with Air Liberté, the airline retaining the name "Air Liberté".[7] On 22 September 2001 the airline was renamed Air Lib.[8] In October, Swissair went bankrupt, unable to make all scheduled payments. The French Government then granted a loan of €30.5 million to the company.
Despite government aid, the airline accumulated debts of €120 million and was forced to declare bankruptcy in August 2002. The government then ordered the implementation of a new restructuring plan before the end of the year. Several projects were considered without result, and the company was liquidated on 17 February 2003. As a result, no other competing international-level full-service French airline had appeared, leaving only Air France (now controlled by Air France–KLM) as a de facto monopoly until French Bee was founded in 2016.
Air Liberté operated the following aircraft during operations:
| Image | Aircraft | Total | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbus A300-600R | 2 | |||
| Airbus A310-200 | 2 | |||
| Airbus A310-300 | 1 | Owned by ILFC; later crashed operating Yemenia Flight 626 | ||
| ATR 42-300 | 7 | |||
| ATR 72-202 | 3 | |||
| Boeing 737-200 | 3 | |||
| Fokker 100 | 12 | |||
| McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 | 5 | |||
| McDonnell Douglas MD-82 | 5 | |||
| McDonnell Douglas MD-83 | 13 | |||
| Total | 53 | |||
