LATECOERE, PIERRE

born 1883, Bagnres-de-Bigorre, Fr. died Aug. 11, 1943, Paris French aircraft manufacturer who aided the development of international airline service. The Compagnie Latcore began commercial air flights between Toulouse, Fr., and Barcelona on Dec. 25, 1918, and extended its route to Morocco in 1919 and to Dakar, Senegal, in 1925. In 1927 the line was renamed Compagnie Gnrale Aropostale, and, at the end of the decade, it temporarily operated a transatlantic route to Buenos Aires. After financial failure in 1932, the company was taken over by Air France. Founded in 1917, Latcore's aircraft-building company had factories at Toulouse and Bayonne and a seaplane base at Biscarrosse, Landes. At various times the author-aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupry was employed by both the airline and the manufacturing concern.