Aviation in France The national carrier of France is Air France, a full service global airline which flies to 20 domestic destinations and 150 international destinations in 83 countries (including Overseas departments and territories of France) across all 6 major continents. The history of French aviation began at the beginning of the 20th century. The French had been involved in human flight since 1783, when François Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes flew over Paris in the first human flight in a Hot air balloon. On 7 January 1785 Jean-Pierre Blanchard crossed the English Channel, from Dover to Calais, on board a hydrogen balloon.
Women in aviation a passenger in an untethered hot air balloon, which flew above Lyon, France in 1784. Four years later, Jeanne Labrosse became the first woman to fly solo in a balloon and would become the first woman to parachute, as well. Sophie Blanchard took her first balloon flight in 1804, was performing as a professional aeronaut by 1810 and was made Napoleon's chief of air service in 1811. Blanchard, the first woman who was a professional in the air, died in a spectacular crash in 1819. In June 1903, Aida de Acosta, an American woman vacationing in Paris, convinced Alberto Santos-Dumont,