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Latécoère Rally 2015: the start of a beautiful and lengthy adventure!
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Retirement? Not for Jean Pierre Labescat and Didier Bertay. If they have withdrawn from the world of work, it’s only to plunge into adventure instead! And what an adventure: the Latécoère Rally, from the name of the iconic French entrepreneur who wanted to connect people and continents by air, embodying commercial and postal aviation.
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The annual Latécoère Rally seeks to maintain the memories of the Latécoère and Aéropostale lines, and throughout the route connecting Toulouse to Dakar participants took part in cultural events.
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Jean Pierre and Didier – both former AGS branch managers – covered the 9000 km separating Toulouse and Dakar in two weeks. On their journey they made several stopovers in Spain, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal.
The AGS Group supported them throughout, and is pleased to share their epic adventure!
“This rally was a success, both from the aeronautical point of view and the human perspective, ” reveals Jean-Pierre.
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The daily challenges the two pilots had to overcome included some unforeseen changes in flights’ organisation, the apprehension of erratic weather conditions, and planning intermediate stops to meet different planes’ fuel economies.
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The pilots agree that the most challenging stage of the Rally was probably the one in Nouadhibou in Mauritania. Here the rally participants were challenged to take off with their 25 airplanes within only half an hour.
This is because the airport was meant to be closed for repairs to its runway for the next four days, and none of the participants wanted to stay on the tarmac during this phase! The challenge required thoroughness and important organizational skills, but was conducted successfully thanks to the participants’ motivation.
“Even though what we did is relatively minimal, the happiness of these children is huge…”
During this breathtaking journey tracing the path of aviation’s’ pioneers, Jean-Pierre and Didier also had the opportunity to get involved in several community projects.
This involved distributing thousands of school supplies and textbooks to the children of Rabat and Tarfaya Cap Juby in Morocco; Nouadhibou in Mauritania and Saint-Louis in Senegal – where the school is entirely financed by the Pierre Georges Latécoère Association.
In addition, they had the opportunity to share their passion for aviation with children from these schools by offering them their first flight. These special moments are some of the highlights of this adventure, according to Didier!
“We will always remember the contact with the school children during the community projects,” he explains. “Even though what we did is relatively minimal, the happiness of these children was huge – especially their wonder when discovering their house or neighborhood from the sky!”
Jean-Pierre and Didier have already added the Latécoère Rally 2016 to their calendar, with the intention to again represent AGS’ colours.
We wish to congratulate them on their success, and for their great heart. The AGS Group will be happy to follow them again during the 2016 Rally, and to continue to share their adventures with you!
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Present in Africa for over a quarter of a century,
the AGS Group has grown from 45 countries in 2013
to 48 in 2014 and we will reach 54 countries
by September 2016.
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French Version
