Private company

AéroLyon

1996–2002 airline in France

Aerolyon S.A. was a French long-haul airline that was established in October 1996 and started flying that December.2 It is part of TUI Group.1 It ceased to exist in 2001.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1996Founded1
145bg - Aero Lyon DC-10-30, F-GLYS@CDG,11.08.2001 - Flickr - Aero Icarus
Photo: Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

Aerolyon S.A. was a French long-haul airline that was established in October 1996 and started flying that December.2

Corporate structure

AéroLyon is part of a group headed by TUI Group. 85 entities, 20 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Aerolyon was a long-haul airline based in Lyon, France. It flew on a regular basis from various French airports, including Lyon, Paris, Brest, Nantes and Bordeaux to the Caribbean, West Indies and other overseas French territories. It was owned by French tourism company Nouvelles Frontieres, which also owned Corsairfly. Aerolyon also performed services for other air carriers. In 2000, it would theoretically have been taken over by TUI AG when it bought Nouvelles Frontieres. Instead, TUI AG took control of Corsairfly.

In 1996, Aerolyon leased a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 from ChallengAir. In 1999, another DC-10 joined the fleet, and a third aircraft in 2002. The airline fleet would never expand beyond three DC-10s. Aerolyon ceased operations in May 2002 and was declared bankrupt in that August.

Aeroplus L'Air, an outfit run by Jean-Marie Gras, attempted to create a revival of the airline using a single Airbus A340. However in December 2002, a court in Lyon decided that a rescue plan was too risky, and it rejected the proposal.

From Wikipedia’s article on AeroLyon, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Products and brands

Aerolyon operated the following aircraft. Two of the original aircraft were scrapped after Aerolyon's demise, and one of the first aircraft delivered to the company in 1997 was put in storage.

From Wikipedia’s article on AeroLyon, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 2001Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. 1996Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4