Aéroport Brest Bretagne Airport (2007)
In 1917, America entered the war. Convoys of troops and equipment must be protected from German submarine attacks. The French and American navies choose to base their escort and attack airships at the extreme (and marshy) tip of Europe in the Atlantic: the Brest-Guipavas base is born.
The first aeroclub in Finistère was created there in 1930, but it was not until 1937 that the first real airport or "green" airport was inaugurated for civilian commercial traffic. During the Second World War, the occupying forces extended the runway and in 1946, the first air shipments of strawberries from Plougastel to England could be seen.
Air Inter launched its first regular Paris-Brest flight in DC-3 in 1961. Since then, traffic has continued to grow to reach an annual million passengers. The runway is lengthened and today receives 747s and AN-124s. The airport represents more than a thousand direct jobs and its infrastructure has adapted to tourist, low-cost, regional and business traffic.
In 2007, the Brest Chamber of Commerce put into service a new terminal that can accommodate up to 1.4 million passengers. The firm Dietschy-Rey-Lesage-Weinmann of Mulhouse, in partnership with the Brest firm Archipole, was selected for an innovative project in the shape of a manta ray.
This book, published by Air Edition, retraces the various milestones of this history through a particularly rich iconography.
Air Edition
82 pages - in French