L'Avion Airlines
4th in a Series: A Fictional Transatlantic Boutique Airline Based in France
L’Avion, legally incorporated as Compagnie L'Avion, is a French boutique airline founded by Bernard Beauchamp and headquartered at Paris Orly Airport (ORY), in the southern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France, France.
The airline specializes in offering long-haul, all-business class air service between Europe and select cities in eastern North America, especially between Paris-ORY and New York-JFK. The airline is notable for providing business class quality seats and services at price points slightly higher than what legacy airlines tend to offer for premium economy class. This formula has proven to be mostly successful for the company.
History
L’Avion Airlines was founded in 2011 by Bernard Beauchamp, a commercial pilot turned entrepreneur. Mr Beauchamp was previously a cofounder of Air Méditerranée, a startup low-cost carrier (LCC) established in 2004 at Nice-NCE, France that caters mostly to the European middle class leisure travel market. Mr Beauchamp, who was also the company’s chief pilot, cashed out his stake in Air Méditerranée during the fall of 2009 and then took about two years off.
When Mr Beauchamp returned to France in 2011, he assembled a small group of investors with an eye towards starting up another airline - this time a carrier dedicated to flying between Europe and New York with a stronger focus on the business class segment. The new company leased two Boeing 757-200 aircraft from JetStream Aerospace and outfitted them with 90 all-business class seats instead of the more commonly seen 200 seat mixed class format.
Having spent almost a year fine tuning the company’s plans, the airline began operations on 4 April 2012, offering daily air service on two routes: Paris-ORY «» New York-JFK, and London-LGW «» New York-JFK. A carefully targeted advertising campaign made these routes quite profitable for the company, and L’Avion soon became a favored choice within the highly competitive yet very lucrative J frequent flier market.
Switching to Airbus A321neo
By 2016 Mr Beauchamp had begun to look beyond the current 757 fleet to consider newer potential aircraft options. Boeing had stopped building the 757 several years ago, but despite prevailing industry demand for a newer generation middle of the market (MoM) aircraft type, Boeing never launched a true replacement for the 757-200.
After briefly considering the economics, benefits and drawbacks to moving up to the Boeing 787, the company decided instead to simply replace its 757s with the new Airbus A321LR, which was a closer fit to the 757’s specifications and market segmentation. During the 2017 Paris Air Show, L’Avion placed a firm order for six A321LRs with options for more. Three of the even longer range Airbus A321XLR aircraft were subsequently added to the order book two years later during the 2019 Paris Air Show, with plans to receive them during the mid-2020s.
Impacts of Covid-19 and Brexit
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, L’Avion responded by shutting down all operations and placing its employees on extended furlough at 75% of normal pay. Initial plans were to resume normal operations by June 2020, but resumption was delayed multiple times until Spring 2021.
During the suspension period, the company provided occasional ad hoc charter flights for the French government and others, usually in the form of repatriation flights. Air crews were given generous pay to undertake such flights. The airline also took delivery of its first two Airbus A321LR aircraft and configured them with 76 all-business class seats. These aircraft were placed at Paris-ORY while the two 757s were squirreled away into storage at Teruel-TEV, Spain. Mr Beauchamp also exercised options on additional A321LRs and A321XLRs to be delivered during the mid-2020s.
When regular service finally resumed in 2021, the decision was taken to drop the LGW «» JFK route altogether, due to Brexit. Instead, the airline placed both of their new aircraft exclusively on the ORY «» JFK route in a bid to increase seat capacity. The next Airbus A321LR delivered was also added to the ORY «» JFK route, bringing the total number of daily flights between that city pair to three. Thanks to strong post-Covid “revenge travel” trends, L’Avion quickly returned to profitability, and the carrier’s Boeing 757s were pulled out of storage and sold off.
Recent Activities
As more A321LRs were delivered they were deployed on new routes from Paris-ORY. Service was added first on the ORY «» Toronto-YYZ and ORY «» Montreal-YUL sectors during early 2022. As further aircraft arrived later the same year they were set to fly on internal EU routes between ORY «» Marseille-MRS, ORY «» Milan-MXP, and ORY «» Nice-NCE. One other aircraft was assigned to fly a new Marseille-MRS «» New York-JFK route. The two most recent A321LRs were allocated to provide seasonal air service, covering routes between Paris-ORY and select destinations in the Caribbean during winter, while covering MXP «» JFK and NCE «» JFK during the summer months.
L’Avion continues to await delivery of its first Airbus A321XLR jet, which at press time is still in the final stages of EASA certification but should begin arriving in late 2024. Adding year round scheduled service between New York-JFK «» Lyon-LYS and/or Washington-IAD «» Paris-ORY are reportedly being contemplated, along with direct seasonal service to New York-JFK from French Caribbean destinations, possibly including JFK «» Fort-de-France-FDF and/or JFK «» Guadeloupe-PTP, as well as a potential JFK «» Sint Maarten-SXM route.
Meanwhile, the incoming A321XLR aircraft are deemed to be a game changing addition to the fleet, with widespread speculation they will be used to boost new nonstop service between Paris-ORY «» Cancun-CUN, ORY «» Goa-GOX (or Goa-GOI), ORY «» Miami-MIA, ORY «» New Orleans-MSY, and/or ORY «» Orlando-MCO.
Destinations
L’Avion Airlines currently offers nonstop or direct air service to the following destinations.
Year Round Destinations
Paris-ORY, France - Base [ Year-Round Map Link ]
New York-JFK, NY USA - Focus City
Marseilles-MRS, France
Milan-MXP, Italy
Nice-NCE, France
Montreal-YUL, Quebec, Canada
Toronto-YYZ, Ontario, Canada
Seasonal Air Destinations
Paris-ORY, France - Base [ Seasonal Map Link ]
New York, NY USA - Focus City
Fort-de-France-FDF, Martinique [winter]
Guadeloupe-PTP, France [winter]
Milan-MXP, Italy [summer]
Nice-NCE, France [summer]
St-Lucia-UVF, St Lucia [winter]
St Maarten-SXM, Sint Maarten [winter]
Fleet
Current Fleet
L’Avion Airlines currently operates the following aircraft.
Airbus A321LR - 2020-Present
Former Fleet
L’Avion Airlines previously operated the following aircraft.
Boeing 757-200 - 2012-2020
Future Fleet
L’Avion Airlines currently has orders for the following aircraft to be delivered in the near future.
Airbus A321XLR - Expected Late 2024
= Nota Bene =
L’Avion was a real world passenger airline based at Paris-ORY, France. It was active 2006-2009 before it was sold away to British Airways. The livery for this fictional version of L’Avion is obviously inspired by the active real life airline La Compagnie, which shares quite a bit of DNA with the real life L’Avion, both conceptually and literally - the French entrepreneur Frantz Yvelin was a co-founder of both companies, and both were all-business class boutique carriers.
I found the original L’Avion’s logo, wordmark and livery to be uninspiring. However, I absolutely love the look of La Compagnie’s vivid Celeste Blue and Anthracite Grey paint scheme. La Compagnie’s tail logo is much better looking than L’Avion’s logo but a bit more corporate looking than I think a boutique airline’s logo should look. So I decided to use L’Avion’s name but apply La Compagnie distinctive color scheme, then create my own logo design - a stylized bird’s wing. I think it turned out pretty good.
Air Méditerranée was a real world French charter airline based at Lourdes-LDE, France near the France/Spain border. The carrier was active 1997-2016, especially at Paris-CDG, Lyon-LYS and Nante-NTE. The company ceased operations in 2016. (Air Méditerranée should not be confused with Air Mediterranean, an active scheduled and charter airline that is based in Greece.)
I like boutique airlines as a general concept. The oldest one I know of is MAXjet Airways, and there are still a handful of them flying around today.
I’ll definitely be sharing other boutique airline concepts in time.
All liveries depicted in this article were conceived and drawn by the Author.
All aircraft templates shown in this article are licensed from Norebbo and augmented by the Author for display. Blank side view templates of these aircraft are available for purchase through ShopNorebbo.
Route Maps were created using Great Circle Map.