Airwell 🇫🇷

Airwell was born in 1947 in the Paris region, when Paul Wallet founded Air Conditionné Entreprise (ACE) with the ambition of bringing from the United States a product that did not yet exist in Europe: the air conditioner. In 1950 the company began mass‑producing its first window unit, aimed at the European and African markets, and around 1964 it raised the factory in Tillières‑sur‑Avre, in Normandy, which would be its industrial heart for half a century. In 1970 Airwell split its window unit into two and proclaimed itself the first European manufacturer of wall‑mounted splits; in 1982 it launched the first European range of splits with electronic control, tangential fan and rotary compressors.

It was the major French brand in commercial air‑conditioning from the sixties to the eighties, with consoles and cassette units that still appear in offices, banks and hotels throughout Europe, including Spain. In the early nineties it employed about a thousand people, but sales plunged from 90 million euros in 1992 to 64 million in 1993, and in September of that year it entered suspension of payments. It was rescued by the Israeli group Elco, owner of Electra, which stabilized it with strict management and staff cuts.

Under Elco, Airwell became the flagship of an international group based in Guyancourt: in 1998 it opened a factory in Shenzhen, in October 1999 it bought Wesper (Pons, 260 employees), a specialist in air‑treatment units, and in 2008 it acquired for $13.25 million the residential business of the bankrupt American company Fedders, with the brands Fedders, Airtemp and Emerson Quiet Kool. It grew to have six factories, 2,700 employees and a presence in more than one hundred countries. In Spain it operated Airwell Ibérica, S.A., based in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), which sold Airwell to the professional channel and Johnson and Electra to the appliance channel.

Asian competition and the 2008 crisis did the rest. In 2012 the group split into Airwell Residential (domestic equipment) and Airwell Group (industry and the two factories); in June 2013 Elco sold Airwell Group to the German fund Dubag and in April 2014, after four years of losses, the company entered bankruptcy proceedings. In July 2014 the Swedish company Systemair took over the Tillières factory (35 million in turnover, 207 employees) and the Spanish Hitecsa took Wesper in Pons; a total of 180 jobs were lost.

The brand survived thanks to Airwell Residential, which remained in the hands of Elco until Laurent Roegel, its former CEO, bought it in April 2021 through Groupe Airwell, based in Montigny-le-Bretonneux; in July 2021 the company was listed on Euronext Access+. Today Airwell again sells splits, heat pumps and energy solutions under its historic name, proudly claiming to be “the French air‑conditioning brand since 1947”.

In Spain

Airwell, the French brand founded in 1947 by Paul Ballet that would later become the parent company of Johnson in Spain, was featured in Spanish magazines since the 1960s. Its first stage was as a distributor: a press sheet from that decade, “Controle su clima de trabajo,” recommended installing in “the office, the laboratory or your business: hotel, restaurant, sanatorium, café, studio” the “Airwell air conditioners, the largest production in Europe,” which “cool, dehumidify, filter, heat, renew and evacuate stale air,” and it was signed “Official distributor: Luxofil, S.L., Avda. José Antonio 536, Barcelona-11.” In 1968 it announced the MAY-50 model on a full page, a window unit.

In 1969 the tone changed and the brand already spoke with its own network: the advertisement “What a difference...!”, featuring a relaxed man and a flower on his lapel, recounted how “last year, to protect myself from the heat” he had tried everything until “I decided on Airwell,” and concluded “What a difference! with Airwell. With the guarantee of having its own technical equipment and specialized staff,” followed by a list of branches in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao, Palma de Mallorca, Málaga and Zaragoza. Another sheet from the same series summed up: “Some sweat, others shiver. The most demanding have Airwell.”

That network is the predecessor of Airwell Ibérica, S.A., now based in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, and of the group's later strategy (Airwell for the installer, Johnson for the appliance channel). For the enthusiast, a 1960s Airwell is a window unit or a French‑design console, with the characteristic blue italic logo, and one of the few European brands that competed in Spain with the American ones before the arrival of the Japanese.

Five pieces from todocoleccion support this entry: the “Airwell air‑conditioner advertising, official distributor Luxofil, S.L., 1960s” ad, with the text “control your work climate” and the claim “the largest production in Europe”; the “Airwell MAY‑50 air‑conditioner advertising sheet, 1968,” from a Spanish magazine, 34 × 26.5 cm; the “Airwell air‑conditioner advertising sheet, 1969,” with “What a difference! with Airwell” and the list of delegations; another sheet “Airwell, 60s” and two undated ads catalogued as “Ad. Air conditioning Airwell,” one of them with the slogan “Some sweat, others shiver. The most demanding have Airwell.” Luxofil’s address (Avenida José Antonio 536, now Gran Vía) places it a few blocks from Anglo‑Española de Electricidad, distributor of Admiral, on the same commercial axis in Barcelona.

As recent context, Airwell Ibérica appears in sector directories with headquarters in L'Hospitalet, and the Johnson entry in this encyclopedia explains the relationship between both brands within the Airwell/Electra group.

Pending verification

The year of entry of Elco differs according to the source (1992 in the stock documentation of Groupe Airwell, 1994 in the refrigeration press) and the Tillières factory is dated 1964 or 1970. The creation date of Airwell Ibérica has not been confirmed.

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us. hola@frostalgia.com