History
In 1948, the Tunisian government reached an agreement with Air France and Tunisair was created. It started operations in 1949. By 1957, the number of shares held by Air France were decreased and the Tunisian government became the largest shareholder in Tunisair. In its early years of operation, the title used on its aircraft was Tunis Air.
The first aircraft type to be operated was the twin-engined Douglas DC-3 and this was followed from 1954 by the larger four-engined Douglas DC-4, which was used on services to Paris.
The first jet-powered equipment was added in 1961 when the twin-engined Sud Caravelle was introduced to the fleet. The first of Tunisair's higher capacity Boeing 727 tri-jets was delivered in February 1972.
By 1990, 2 Airbus A320 aircraft were added to its fleet. During 1993-1998, Tunisair began to expand its services across Europe by starting flights to Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, Bratislava, Lisbon, Linz, Salzburg, Graz, Moscow, Beirut and Stockholm. Only Beirut and Stockholm are served by regular scheduled flights, Lisbon is seasonal. The rest are served by charter flights. The Moscow flight has been discontinued, even in charter.
On 21 October 1998, Tunisair celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its creation, and beginning to retire their Boeing 727s.
In 1999, Tunisair and Air France signed an agreement to form an alliance. That agreement was set to end on 4 January 2010.
Read more about this topic: Tunisair
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