COVER N. 442 - FRANCE

Postmark: 58 - Clamecy Nièvre  10.04.24

Posted on the 10th April received on the 15th April 2024

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Paris - Charles de Gaule, ICAO code CDG, celebrates 50 years. Such a fact more than justifies  a commemorative stamp, something that, unfortunately, did not happen when Lisbon Airport celebrated its 50th anniversary, in 1992.

Being very fond of aviation related stamps, I am very pleased to be able to add this lovely cover to my collection. Un énorme merci, Jean-Pierre, pour ce beau pli.

The main airports serving the European capitals, follow broadly the same historical origins. Usually located in places which were at the epicentre of the history of heavier than air flight in their respective countries, they grew in size and importance in direct proportion to the growth of civil aviation, something that, during most of the twentieth century, was in turn directly linked to the cessation of both world wars.

The end of the conflicts brought about not only developments in flight technology, but made pilots and aircraft available to support civil aviation expansion.

So much so, that by the 60s of last century, it was clear to the French Government that the existing Paris - Orly Airport, itself a direct descendant of the glorious civil aviation pioneer times, would not be able to accommodate the expected growth in traffic and therefore something had to be done.

That something was Paris - Charles de Gaulle Airport, which was inaugurated on the 8th March 1974 and  opened to traffic some days later, on the 14th, the first flight of an Air France aircraft departing from its runways taking off on the 30th April.

Originally built around a single terminal and two parallel runways (runway 2 would only open in 1976, though), the civil aviation support infrastructure located at Roissy, some 35 km by car from downtown Paris, would in time  grow to the current three terminal and four runway system, that makes for the main international French Airport, as indicated by the 57 million passengers that went through this facility in 2022.

For this important milestone, La Poste issued on 18MAR2024 a very nice 1,96 € stamp, which while clearly stating the reason for the celebration on the included  legend,  calls on the relevance of  architecture as a background to it. In fact, when inaugurated, Terminal 1, conceived by architect Paul Andreu, was considered a civil  and airport  engineering masterpiece, with its octopus like shape: a central "head" connected to seven satellites (the eight leg being its own access road). A building fit to feature alongside Paris most iconic architectural symbol, the Eiffel Tower, whose presence on the stamp, albeit rather partial, immediately tells the viewer that we're talking about something French, and most likely, Parisian....

Above the terminal, an aircraft (an Airbus, I'd bet) is seen climbing after take off on another international, or even intercontinental flight... Happy Birthday CDG!

The Postmark indicates that the letter was posted at Clamecy, a town in the Nièvre department, Central France.