79.4% of total passengers from 2019 to 2023; a figure falling to 75.4% in 2024. DGAC statistics prove it. Domestic traffic in France collapses year on year. With a definite acceleration since the Covid period. Last year, 20.2 million passengers flew on domestic routes. They were still 21.2 million by 2023 26.7 million in 2019 - which was already down 2.1% on 2018.
Radial lineswhich link Paris to the rest of France, are those which have seen the biggest fall in passenger numbers. Last year, they welcomed 11.7 million passengers compared with 16.3 million in 2019. In fact, the total number of passengers in 2024 was 29.5% lower than in 2019.
With 8.5 million passengersthe transverse lines (region to region) are doing slightly better. The decline from 2019 to 2024 is "only" 18.7%. In 2019, cross-border routes nevertheless accounted for more than 10 million annual passengers.
This negative trend is primarily due to the elimination of all air routes where trains offer journeys of less than 3 hours. Major routes such as Orly-Lyon and Orly-Bordeaux have disappeared completely.
But domestic traffic is also affected by the slowdown in air travel for business travellers on domestic routes. This is particularly true, for example, on the Paris-Toulouse. With 2.1 million passengers, the line has lost almost 36% of passengers since 2019.. But even on a route as important as Bordeaux-Lyon, the DGAC notes a seven-point drop in passenger numbers between 2023 and 2024. In other words, passenger traffic is now 36.5% lower than in 2019.
