The Dassault Mercure has the sad distinction of probably being the world’s least successful airliner. Only 12 were built and 11 saw service with their sole operator, Air Inter, albeit without major incident. Stephen Skinner tells the Mercure story
The Mercure adopted the same broad configuration as the 737 and later A320, but was not a success, being too short-ranged to serve many popular routes
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Dassault is well regarded for its military jets, particularly the Mirage family and most recently the Rafale, plus its stylish Falcon executive jet series, which has been in continuing development for more than 50 years. But its bid to enter the world of commercial aircraft never really ‘took off’ and the aircraft that was named after Mercury, the winged Roman god of commerce and travel, failed to become a financial success.
