French bee

French bee is a French long-haul low-cost airline based at Paris Orly. It belongs to Groupe Dubreuil, the group that also owns Air Caraïbes, and its head office is in the group's offices in Bellevigny, Vendée. It flies wide-body Airbus A350s from Orly to leisure destinations overseas, mainly French overseas territories and North America.

The model applies short-haul low-cost thinking to long flights. Fares come in two families: "Bee" for the Economy cabin and "Premium" for its Premium cabin, each with sub-fares from Light to Flex that add more services as they go up. Meals, extra bags, seat selection and airport services such as lounge access are otherwise sold separately. As of October 2026, a cabin bag is included in every fare.

From French Blue to French bee

The airline grew out of talks in 2014 between Marc Rochet, then an executive at Air Caraïbes, and Jean-Paul Dubreuil, chairman of Groupe Dubreuil. After a bid for Corsair fell through in 2015, the group decided to start a new carrier. It was unveiled as French Blue in March 2016 and flew its first scheduled service, Orly to Punta Cana, on 10 September 2016, using an Airbus A330-300. Réunion followed in June 2017.

In late 2017 the US airline JetBlue objected to the word "blue" while French Blue was applying for US traffic rights, and on 30 January 2018 the airline announced its new name, French bee. Flights from Orly to Papeete in French Polynesia, with a stop in San Francisco, began on 11 May 2018. The A330 was later transferred to Air Caraïbes, leaving an all-A350 fleet. Newark followed on 14 July 2021, Los Angeles on 30 April 2022, Miami on 15 December 2022 and Montreal on 30 April 2025.

Network

In a press release in September 2026, French bee said it serves seven destinations from Orly: Réunion, Tahiti, New York (Newark), San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and Montreal. It said two seasonal non-stop routes, to Malé in the Maldives and Colombo in Sri Lanka, would start on 19 December 2026. The airline also sells through tickets with interline partners, including Air Austral, Air Tahiti, Alaska Airlines and Volotea, and has codeshares with Air Caraïbes and the French railway SNCF.

Fleet

A Wikipedia fleet table dated July 2026 lists six aircraft: four A350-900s with 411 seats (35 Premium, 376 Economy) and two A350-1000s with 480 seats (40 Premium, 440 Economy). The first A350-1000 arrived on 17 December 2021. Every seat has a seat-back screen, and Wi-Fi is sold on board.

2025–26

• 21 January 2025: Groupe Dubreuil's chief executive, Paul-Henri Dubreuil, became interim president of the airline after Christine Ourmières-Widener left.
• Summer 2026: part of the cabin crew took industrial action. In its September 2026 release French bee said every passenger booked during the dispute reached their destination, some on other services. It also said it was ready to resume talks with crew representatives.
• November 2026: the airline said a new crew planning and operations system, IBS, would be rolled out from that month.