[1] Air Outre Mer, or AOM for short, was founded in 1988 in the French overseas département of the island of Réunion and began scheduled passenger service in 1990 with a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 and a Dornier 228.

Air Minerve was the first airline to compete directly with Air Inter on the French domestic airline market by opening a Paris (Orly) - Nice route in May 1990.

In February 1999, Swissair acquired a 49% stake in the airline as a part of its "hunter strategy".

Due to inappropriate fleet management and overcapacity, the airline quickly accumulated huge debts and consequently ceased operations in 2001 (possibly as a result of the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the early 2000s recession which followed)[citation needed].

[citation needed] On 25 March 2001 AOM French Airlines merged with Air Liberté, the airline retaining the name "Air Liberté".