Aeroposta Argentina

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 Argentine airline established on 5 September 1927 as a subsidiary of the French airmail carrier Aéropostale(Compagnie générale aéropostale). In 1929, Aéropostale expanded its airmail network within South America, including the first domestic air services on routes to Asunción, Paraguay, Santiago de Chile, and the Argentine cities of Bahía Blanca, Comodoro Rivadavia and Río Gallegos.

The task of opening the new air routes was assigned, among others, to the French aviators Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Jean Mermoz. Saint-Exupéry served as director of the newly formed company based in Buenos Aires, while Mermoz was appointed chief pilot. Saint-Exupéry conducted Aeroposta's inaugural flight on 1 November 1929, from the airfield at Villa Harding Green to Comodoro Rivadavia.

In the early years of commercial aviation, airline personnel surveyed routes and locations for potential emergency landing strips and fuel depots. Saint-Exupéry's experiences in Argentina later informed his novel Night Flight, which received the Prix Femina and was adapted into a film of the same name. Regular flights commenced in 1929 to additional Argentine cities, including Posadas and Mendoza. Service was further expanded the following year to Comodoro Rivadavia and San Antonio Oeste, followed shortly by Río Gallegos.

Aeroposta Argentina remained the only airline operating in Argentina until 1946, when several additional carriers were established. In 1949, Aeroposta Argentina merged with ALFA(Sociedad Mixta Aviación del Litoral Fluvial Argentino), FAMA (Flota Aérea Mercante Argentina) and ZONDA (Zonas Oeste y Norte de Aerolíneas Argentinas) to form the new national airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas.