The airmail is the division of a postal administration in charge of the transport of the mail by plane starting from the inter-war period in Europe. More expensive, this means of forwarding justified postal labels and specific postage stamps.

   Stamps of Airmail

   Stamp French of station aérienneL' forwarding of mail and small packages by the airmail requiring a stamping more important than forwarding by the road, the train or the boat, the stations emitted stamps being marked “airmail” and whose facial value was much stronger than that of the usual postage stamps.

   Often, these stamps carried figurines related to the topic of aviation: historical pilots pioneers, apparatuses, sights of city since the sky, etc

   Currently, the evolution of postal transport makes that the majority of forwardings by the stations towards a remote destination pass by the air route. The stamps of airmail are often of simple stamps of strong values to compose of stampings which are not inevitably related to an air forwarding (example: stamping in stamps of a parcel).

   However, the majority of the editors of catalogues of stamps always classify these stamps after the “normal” postage stamps, except for the German editor Michel who classifies the emissions in their strict chronology.

   Aerophilately

   For the collectors, the airmail is a very wide research field:
   - philatelic collection of the stamps of airmail,
   - collection and study of the folds having travelled during the first decades of the postal air adventure,
   - aerophilately is the collection of the folds and marks postal related to aviation.

   Compagnie Générale Aéropostale

   The "Compagnie générale aéropostale" is a French airline company, founded in 1919 in Toulouse under the name of Société of the Latécoère lines, then of general Company of aeronautical companies (1921-1927), by Pierre-Georges Latécoère. The activities of this company were not limited to the only transport of the mail.

   Developed the shortly after the First World War, the postal aviation must much with the courage of its first pilots, true pioneers of aviation, that some regard as heroes.

   Indeed, in the years 1920, each flight is a risked adventure, which can be fatal. The daily newspaper and the exploits of these pilots are brought back to us by the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - pilot of air-mail itself - in his novel Night flight (which describes a postal flight in South America), like in other works.

   Since 1918, Pierre-Georges Latécoère imagines an air line connecting France to Senegal while passing by Spain and Morocco. He then founds the company Air lines Latécoère which creates then exploits the lines Toulouse-Casablanca, Casablanca-Dakar (by Agadir, Cape Juby, Villa Cisneros, Port-Etienne, Saint-Louis) and Rio-Recife in Brazil. It is at Latécoère that Mermoz, Saint-Exupéry and Guillaumet made their first weapons.

   In 1927, Latécoère yields its South American activities to Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont compatriot living in Brazil. This last then founds the Air-mail General Company, more known under the name of Aéropostale In October 1927, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was named by Didier Daurat “chief of aéroplace” in Cape Juby/Tarfaya Little story of Tarfaya.

   There will remain 18 months there. This title indicates the post of head of relay on the trajectory of the mail, in charge of the reception of the pilots, the maintenance of the planes, and even sometimes of the rescue of those whose engines had returned the heart before the stopover.

   The Air-mail one connects soon France to South America, after the first crossing of the Southern Atlantic Ocean by Mermoz. It develops of more than many air lines between the South American cities, sometimes over the Andes. The exploits of the pilots, pushing back the limits of aviation constantly, defying the brutality of the elements, are indisputable.

   In 1930, the Air-mail one had 200 planes and 17 seaplanes, 1500 employees including 51 pilots. But in 1931, the Air-mail one was put in liquidation, mainly because of the economic crisis which struck the world then, since the New York Stock Exchange crash in 1929, but also because of the refusal of the French political world to support the Air-mail one.

   In 1933, the government imposes a regrouping on the French companies of aviation. 4 more important, Air the East, Air Union, the CIDNA and SGTA-Farman form SEALED it which will take the name of Air France and will repurchase the credits of the air-mail general Company which, being in compulsory liquidation, could not take part in the round table. Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont, died in February 1944 in Rio de Janeiro, sees his work celebrated in all South America.

   Source : Wikipédia

I - Before the Independence of 1927 to 1946

II - Before the Independence of 1946 to 1958

III - After Independence