French air carrier XL Airways France (SE/XLF) went bankrupt on September 30th. Earlier on September 23th, all tickets sales were ended. This is already the second French air carrier that went bankrupt in a short time after the recent bankuptcy of Aigle Azur (ZI/AAF).
XL Airways was founded in 1995 under the previous name Star Airlines (SE/SEU). Operational base was at Roissy – Charles de Gaulle Airport at Paris. In 2006, the company was bought by the British tour operator XL Leisure and they changed the company’s name into current. Two years later, the tour operator, together with their British air carrier XL Airways (XL/JNA) went bankrupt, but the French air carrier continued with flight operations under the same name. Their destinations were popular tourist places in the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa, North America and the Caribbean.
Lately, their fleet consisted of three Airbus A330-200s (in the above picture from Dubrovnik) and one Airbus A330-300. Previously they used to operate with smaller Airbus A320s and Boeing 737-800s (in the lower picture from Split). A few years ago, XL Airways France operated regular flights on route Paris – Split, as well as occasional charter flights from France to Dubrovnik.
Photo © Avioradar – archive (DBV/SPU)
