French Bee
French Bee SAS, styled as French bee, and formerly named French Blue, is a French low-cost, long-haul airline based at Paris Orly Airport. It operates a scheduled network between France and worldwide leisure destinations. Its head office is in parent company Groupe Dubreuil's offices in the Belleville-sur-Vie area of Bellevigny, Vendée, France.
History
Groupe Dubreuil, the owner of Air Caraïbes, established and publicly unveiled the airline in March 2016 as "French Blue", with initial plans to launch flights from Paris to Punta Cana by September 2016, flights to the islands of Réunion and Mauritius in summer 2017, and to operate a fleet of two Airbus A330-300 and two Airbus A350-900 aircraft by March 2018. The airline also planned to hire 400 employees within two years. After receiving its first Airbus A330-300, the airline operated some long-haul flights on behalf of Air Caraïbes from 1 July 2016, before the airline's first flight from Paris Orly to Punta Cana International Airport on 10 September 2016. In October 2016, the airline announced its next destination from Paris Orly with flights to Roland Garros Airport on Réunion Island, beginning on 16 June 2017. In August 2017, the airline received its first Airbus A350-900, and was also considering Mauritius and Seychelles as new destinations for 2018. By November 2017 however, the airline ultimately chose Papeete and San Francisco as its next destinations, with plans to begin serving them on 11 May 2018.In November 2017, while the airline as "French Blue" was applying with the United States Department of Transportation for a foreign air carrier permit to begin service to the country, US-based JetBlue Airways raised objections to another airline serving the country bearing the word "Blue" in its name; in response, the airline was temporarily renamed to simply "French", before the airline announced on 30 January 2018 that it was rebranding as "French Bee". In February 2018, after receiving regulatory approval to begin operations to the US, the airline formally announced the opening of reservations for flights between Paris Orly and Faa'a International Airport in French Polynesia, stopping at San Francisco International Airport each way, to launch on 11 May 2018 as previously planned. In June 2019, the airline transferred its Airbus A330-300 to Air Caraïbes following the delivery of its third Airbus A350-900, after which the airline's fleet consisted entirely of Airbus A350 aircraft. In September 2019, the airline announced its second destination in the US with flights to Newark Liberty International Airport, to begin on 10 June 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting United States travel ban beginning in March 2020, French Bee temporarily suspended its operations to the US, operating its flights to Faa'a International Airport by rerouting its intermediate stop from San Francisco International Airport interchangeably between Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport and Vancouver International Airport, however the airline did not pursue international traffic rights to allow passengers to travel solely to or from Vancouver. During these operations, the airline claimed the record for the world's longest domestic flight; after making a stopover in Pointe-à-Pitre on a flight from Paris Orly to Papeete carrying medical supplies to French Polynesia, the Airbus A350-900 operating the flight returned from Papeete to Paris Orly as a nonstop flight on 15 May 2020, traveling a total of, overtaking Air Tahiti Nui, the previous record holder for its flight from Papeete to Paris Charles de Gaulle earlier that March, which traveled. During a period when Orly Airport was closed between 12 June 2020 and 13 July 2020, the airline's Paris-based operations were also temporarily relocated to Charles de Gaulle Airport. The airline's planned flights to Newark Liberty International Airport that were to begin in June 2020 were also initially suspended to July, and then to August 2020.
Destinations
French Bee operates, or has previously operated scheduled flights to the following destinations as of 2020:| Country | City | Airport | Notes | |
| Dominican Republic | Punta Cana | Punta Cana International Airport | ||
| France | Paris | Orly Airport | ||
| France | Papeete | Faa'a International Airport | ||
| France | Saint-Denis | Roland Garros Airport | ||
| United States | Newark | Newark Liberty International Airport | ||
| United States | San Francisco | San Francisco International Airport |