The story
The airline was formed on 1 January 1992 by the merger of Air Exel, Air Vendée and Avions Taxis Pyrénéens regional airlines, and scheduled operations operated by Air Aquitaine Transport aviation company. At the beginning the airline was legally a subsidiary of Air Vendée (79% shareholding) but after a few years majority ownership was taken over by Air France.
On 30 March 2001 Regional Airlines, Flandre Air, and Proteus Airlines merged their operations. In September of that same year Regional Airlines changed the corporate name to Régional Compagnie Aérienne Européenne and just Régional marketing and trading name was adopted.
On 31 March 2013 all operations were branded HOP!, an Air France-linked trademark. In March 2017 HOP! became a fully registered air carrier, always working in close connection with Air France.
From Wikipedia’s article on Regional Airlines (France), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3