The story
The airline was founded by Cédric Pastour in August 1995 as Société de Transport Aérien Régional and was trading under Star Europe. In October 1997 it changed its trading name to Star Airlines. On 23 November 2006 the airline changed its name to XL Airways France. On 12 September 2008, parent XL Leisure was about to declare bankruptcy. The airline was then bought by Straumur Investment Bank (later ALMC hf).
On 19 September 2019, XL Airways was placed under legal receivership due to financial difficulties. Ticket sales ceased immediately, and flights were suspended from 23 September. Negotiations with potential buyers had been under way for over a year, and the search for a new buyer continued under the auspices of the commercial court. Only one formal bid was received by the deadline of 4 October – from Gérard Houa, former minority shareholder of Aigle Azur, who proposed to take over two of XL Airways' four planes and 48% of its 570 staff – but the court deemed that the guarantees were insufficient and ordered the liquidation of the company. In January 2020, the airline's remaining assets were auctioned off; the company's brand names and domain names were sold to an unnamed bidder for €686,400, leaving open the possibility of the name being revived.
From Wikipedia’s article on XL Airways France, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5