Tunis Air or Societe Tunisienne de l’ Air was founded on October 21, 1948 with a shareholding structure comprising Air France (35%), the Tunisian government (35%) and other interests (30%). The government’s stake was increased to 51% in 1957 to the expense of Air France shareholding which decreased to 15%. Operations started with a fleet of 4DC3 all acquired from American war surplus
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| F-BAXZ DC3 TUNIS AIR copyright Ed Coates |
and the timetable dated October 21 1951 sheds a good light on the operations of the company.
a table with the list of abbreviations will be provided at the end of the post
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| 1951/52 timetable fm www.timetableimages.com/Bjorn Larsson collection and the corresponding network map |
Network length 4327 km -11 destinations
The first DC4 will be delivered in 1954 and will allow expansion of the network to Orly through a stop in either Nice or Marseilles. The winter 1954/55 timetable reflects these new developments. Worth mentioning is the extension of the Tripoli line to Sebha (known then as Fort Leclerc), an on-demand stop already introduced at the beginning of 1954 and the en-route stop of Philippeville (Skikda nowadays) to Algiers will be terminated.
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| 1954/55 timetable fm www.timetableimages.com/bjorlarsson collection and the corresponding network map |
The company carries 92344 passengers in 1955 .
Tunis Air receives its 2nd DC4 on March 30, 1956 and launches direct flights to Paris. The arrival of the additional DC4 allows the increase of frequency of flights as illustrated by this summer 1957 timetable.
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| TUNIS AIR DOUGLAS DC4 F-BELH @ ORY 31-05-1957.By RuthAS (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
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| TUNIS AIR DC4 -POSTCARD ebay |
The same table shows the extension of a weekly Marseilles service to Lyon, and a direct line to Sebha with an en-route stop in Tripoli.
The 1958/59 winter timetable of the company
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| 1958/59 timetable fm www.timetableimages.com/Bjorn Larsson collection |
presents slight differences with the previous timetable: The decrease in frequency due to the seasonal operations of some routes. The decrease in gauge: the flights to Annaba and Algiers are switched to DC3 operations. Direct non-stop fights to Ajaccio and Bastia and the one-stop flight to Sebha are replaced by a multi-stop segment.
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| 1958/59 Network length 7335km -14 destinations |
Until the end of the fifties, TUNIS AIR remained a small regional company serving a limited number of destinations with a small fleet that was getting obsolete. The next decade, together with the development of Tunisia as a major holiday market and the acquisition of its first jet: the Caravelle , the company will expand its operations and grow to become a major player in the Mediterranean region.
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
List of airport codes used in this post
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