This article contains machine-translated text from the Spanish Wikipedia article Aeroposta Argentina S.A. You can help by improving this Spanish to English translation.
Aeroposta Argentina S.A. was an early pioneering airline in Argentina established in the late 1920s, and a subsidiary of the French airmail carrier Aéropostale. It was created on September 5, 1927, as a subsidiary of the Aéropostale (formally, Compagnie générale aéropostale). In 1929, Aéropostale started expanding its airmail service within South America, and provided the first domestic air services on routes to Asuncion, Paraguay, Santiago de Chile, plus Bahía Blanca, Comodoro Rivadavia and Rio Gallegos in southern Argentina.
The task to open the new air routes was given to, among others, two well-known French aviators: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry as the director of the newly formed company based in Buenos Aires, and to Jean Mermoz, as the company's chief pilot. Saint-Exupéry conducted Aeroposta's inaugural flight on November 1, 1929, flying from an airfield at Villa Harding Green to Comodoro Rivadavia.
In the early days of commercial aviation, which was still in its infancy, its pioneers had to scout routes and sites for everything from potential emergency landing strips to gasoline depots. Saint-Exupéry's experiences in Argentina would inspire his novel Night Flight, winner of the Prix Femina literature award in 1929 and later made into an identically named Hollywood movie. That same year regular flights commenced to other Argentinian cities: Posadas and Mendoza. The following year service was further expanded to include Comodoro Rivadavia and San Antonio Oeste, closely followed by Río Gallegos.
Aeroposta Argentina remained Argentina's only airline until 1946, when several new ones were created. In 1949 Aeroposta Argentina merged with three other air carriers, ALFA (Sociedad Mixta Aviación del Litoral Fluvial Argentino), FAMA (Flota Aerea Mercante Argentina) and ZONDA (Zonas Oeste y Norte de Aerolíneas Argentinas), giving rise to the county's new national airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas.
Ancestral parent: Lignes Aériennes Latécoère
Founded at the end of the World War I, the "Lignes Aériennes Latécoère" was established in September 1919. The France–Morocco postal route became its first scheduled air service between Toulouse and Morocco, and which traveled along the cities such as Barcelona and Alicante on the east coast of Spain. On that same time its founder, Pierre-Georges Latécoère, created the "Compagnie Générale d'Entreprise Aéronautique" and in May 1922, the "Société Industrielle des Avions Latécoère".
In order to extend the line between Casablanca and Dakar, Captain Joseph Roig departed on May 3, 1923, with a group of three biplanes, Bréguet XIVs which flew between Agadir, Cap Juby, Villa Cisneros, and Port Étienne, on the west coast of Africa. The arrived at their destination on May 22.
According to the plan he had conceived during the war by Pierre G. Latécoére, Captain Joseph Roig was sent to South America in May 1924 in order to consider extending the line between Natal, Brazil and Buenos Aires. In the capital city Joseph Roig met with officials of the Department of Civil Aviation of the War Office and explained that the aim of the directors of the Compagnie générale d'entreprises aéronautiques (CGEA) was that Buenos Aires would become terminal site of a future South American airmail line between that continent and France, and later to become a clearinghouse of airmail between Argentina, and its neighboring countries.
President Dr. Marcelo Torcuato Alvear was excited about the idea and gave his approval for the company to send a mission to civil aviation. This time, Captain Roig and his group of three biplanes Bréguet XIV Renault, made a reconnaissance flight from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires, landing on 14 January 1925, in El Palomar, accompanied by Paul Vachet pilots, Étienne Lafay and Victor Hamm and mechanics Gauthier, Estival and Chevalier. In unfavorable weather conditions in March 1925, they started back conducting aerial surveys between Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco (Recife), that would be useful for future pilots of the Atlantic line. Two months later, in June 1925, regular air mail service between Toulouse, Casablanca and Dakar was established.