Early flights
This was an eventful moment for aviation in the Antilles, although early attempts at flight had occurred in the late 19th century. An Englishman, Professor Colby, took off in a balloon in 1886, although his descent (into the water) was apparently equally swift. He did eventually succeed. In 1911, a Guadeloupean mechanic, Jérôme Restan, took off from Pointe-à-Pitre aboard a plane he built himself. The flight was historic but brief, ending in the Pointe-à-Pitre harbor. The aviation industry was late in coming to the French Antilles. The first Guadeloupe-Martinique air link was created in 1923—although British pilots John Alcock and Arthur Brown had already crossed the Atlantic four years earlier. The first local network, using six hydroplanes, was established in 1935. Until 1937, Martinique and Guadeloupe were basically cut off from the major international air routes. This isolation was first broken when Pan American World Airways established a stopover at Fort-de-France for flights from the US to South America in 1937. But this service was abandoned during World War II. In June of 1946, after the war, Air France inaugurated its Paris/New York route. Martinique and Guadeloupe had become French départements just a few months previously and an air link became essential. The commercial route was officially opened on July 26 with a flight carrying 58 passengers from Biscarosse to Fort-de-France, with a stopover in Port-Étienne (now Nouadhibou) in Mauritania.