With more than 172 million passengers on its airports in 2018France is one of the five largest air transport countries in Europe, along with the UK, Spain, Germany and Italy. And yet, if you take a closer look at the figures for air transport in France, you will see that the country is one of the world's biggest air carriers. an exception in Europe by the extreme centralisation of air traffic on Parisparticularly for intercontinental services.
The arrival this summer of Kuwait Airways in Nice with its two weekly frequencies and The Company on Newark with its four weekly frequencies, or the presence during the summer ofAir Transat at Basel-Mulhouse, Bordeaux and Lyon, Marseille, NantesNice and Toulouse (with two to five weekly frequencies) are the trees that hide the forest. Of all the great nations of Western Europe, France offers the most centralised air transport, an old Jacobin tradition of the power of Paris. To which we must add the tacit support of the civil aviation authorities for the national airline Air France and its Roissy hub. This situation translates into business travellers by longer intercontinental flight times because they have to use a third-party airport for a connecting flight.
If we look at our European neighbours, each major country has at least two airports offering a complementarity with heavy intercontinental traffic. This is the case in Great Britain, where Manchester is the country's third-largest hub after London Heathrow and Gatwick, with more than 28 million passengers in Italy, behind Rome Fiumicino looms Milan Malpensaa genuine alternative to air travel, which last year saw almost 25 million passengers. On the tarmac at Malpensa you'll find aircraft from Air China, American, Etihad and Air India. In Germany, Munich continues to gain weight against Frankfurt with the decision of Lufthansa to transfer more intercontinental flights. Last year, the Bavarian capital's airport recorded 46.2 million passengers, a new record.
There are even two major intercontinental airports in countries where passenger volumes are much lower than in France. In Switzerland, Geneva handled 17.66 million passengers last year, more than Nice or Lyon in France. Although not a hub for the national airline Swiss, the hub in French-speaking Switzerland is linked to 11 intercontinental destinationsof which Beijing, New York or thea must Dubai. Recently, it was Ethiopian Airlines which began operations in Geneva. In Portugal, Porto - with 11 million passengers - is linked to New York, Luanda, Rio and Sao Paulo...
France's excessive centralisation can be measured in particular by the ratio between the country's main airport - what could be described as a national hub such as Paris CDG, London Heathrow or Frankfurt - and the next two airports in terms of passenger numbers. The gap between Paris CDG and the top two regional airports - Nice and Lyon - is abysmal. With 13.8 million passengers in 2018, Nice represents just 19.1% of the traffic recorded at Paris CDG (72.2 million passengers last year). The eleven million passengers recorded at Lyon last year accounted for just 15.2% of Roissy hub traffic.
By way of comparison, in a country as centralised as the UK, last year Manchester accounted for 35.2% of London Heathrow's traffic (80.1 million passengers), while Edinburgh and Birmingham were in third place with just over 17%.
If we take German airport traffic as an example, Munich generates the equivalent of 66.5% of the total traffic of Frankfurt while Düsseldorfwhich is number 3 in terms of passenger numbers, represents 35% of Frankfurt with its 23.5 million passengers.
So there is certainly potential for a second major intercontinental airport outside Paris, as France is not so unique compared to its neighbours. Ideally, it would be Lyon which is the best positioned of all the regional airports. The hub is centrally located, just over an hour by TGV from the Mediterranean, an hour from the Alps and Switzerland, and two hours from Paris. The airport benefits from exemplary infrastructure, with its integrated TGV station and motorway network. Above all Lyon Saint-Exupéry serves France's second-largest economic centre and the country's second-largest urban area. This strength is not reflected in the airport's current network.
In intercontinental terms (excluding the French overseas departments), Lyon only has one daily flight a year to North America with Montréal and a daily Emirates flight to Dubai. There are, for example, no Lyon routes to sub-Saharan Africa or to the United States... According to airport management, Lyon-New York is the non-existent route with the greatest potential between Europe and the United States: in 2017, there were more than 73,000 one-way passengers. Lyon is also dreaming of a direct flight to China.
The same phenomenon is repeated elsewhere in France. Marseille is only linked to Antananarivo, Dakar and Montreal. Airport management would like to offer flights to Abidjan, Shanghai and a destination in the Gulf. In fact, the only French airport with an intercontinental offer is Marseille. Nice. This situation is largely due to the destination's tourist appeal, although its high-tech and new technologies cluster at Sophia Antipolis is generating business demand. The hub is linked to Doha and Dubai in the Middle East, as well as New York and Montreal in North America.
Is there hope for change? Will the French authorities end up being more flexible when it comes to allocating traffic rights in the regions? It's likely, with the the rise of regional metropolises and new decentralisation. Above all, the arrival of new-generation, smaller long-haul aircraft, such as the Airbus A320neo and A321neo or the Boeing 737-800 MAX, should usher in a service revolution. These 180- to 200-seat long-range aircraft will finally be able to meet the needs of so-called secondary destinations. It will be easier to sell 180 seats on a Toulouse-Dubai flight or a Bordeaux–Boston. Probably the next revolution for French airports...
