airports

With passenger traffic in 2020 only a third of what it was in 2019 (70 million in 2020 compared with 214 million in 2019), France's airports are gearing up to win back the market. According to Thomas Juin, Chairman of the Union des Aéroports...

We suspected it, but the Union of French Airports (UAF) has confirmed it. 2020 will have seen a collapse in traffic on a scale hitherto unknown in the history of French air transport. Last year, French airports welcomed 70.045 million passengers, a fall of 67.3% compared with 2019. The number of flights reached 898...

2020 will have had devastating effects on European air transport, including that of the United Kingdom. The results of IAG and the major UK airports, published last week, give a very clear idea of the extent of the damage. If we start with IAG - the holding company bringing together British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus -...

The losses incurred by air travel in Great Britain as a result of the pandemic are forcing London Heathrow airport authorities to go after passengers' wallets. On Sunday 28 February, the airport authority announced that departing passengers will now have to pay a supplement of £8.90 (€10.30). This measure, which the airport hopes will be temporary, will enable...

No real surprises on the financial results for French air transport. 2020 has been confirmed as the worst year ever for Air France-KLM. The bi-national tandem suffered a historic loss of 7.1 billion euros. By way of comparison, the biggest loss recorded by the group in the 2009-2010 financial year was "only" 1.6 billion euros....

Driven by the new health context, airlines are speeding up their move towards contactless travel. The latest example comes from Madrid airport, where Iberia recently launched a trial phase with Inetum, Thales, airport operator AENA and the Spanish Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI). The airline...

What does the Affinidi Unifier project involve? Nicholas Foo - As you can imagine, these days everyone wants to open up their borders to boost the economy, but no one really knows how... In Singapore, passenger volumes have fallen to 98 %. And as in other countries, the recovery depends on the reopening of the...

Construction of a new terminal began in Stuttgart, the Federal Administrative Court gave the final go-ahead for work on the new Munich airport, and Lufthansa began training its first female airline pilots. The year was 1986, and German air transport was entering a phase of rapid development. Until 2020. The year 1986...

A major surprise in Asia: the region's busiest international airport in 2020 will now be Seoul Incheon in Korea. The hub has dethroned Hong Kong, which is now probably the fourth, if not the fifth busiest international airport on the continent. The first figures for Asia's airports come on...

At a time when Parisian transport - and in particular services to Orly and Paris-CDG airports - does not always get a good press, RATP has chosen Orlyval to introduce a "world first in LCD": four intelligent windows have been installed on one of the shuttles since 26 January, with the other seven Orlyval trains due to be...

Munich is Germany's second-largest airport, with almost 48 million passengers in 2019. Its growth has been exponential, with passenger traffic up by almost 40% between 2010 and 2019. This growth has been supported by Lufthansa, which has made Munich its second hub. The airport is regularly...

Biometrics, contactless applications, self check-in: the pandemic is accelerating the digitalisation of the passenger journey in planes and airports. Robots and biometrics for the post-covid era Contactless technology, biometrics, robots: spurred on by the pandemic, the digitalisation of the passenger journey is gathering pace (13 October 2020). Digital technology to the rescue of passengers The ACI (Airports...

Will we be able to make duty-free purchases between the UK and the rest of the world in 2021? The answer is yes. Passengers will still be able to make duty-free purchases in Duty-Free Shops. The announcement even comes with some good news. Travellers between the EU and Great Britain will once again be able to buy alcohol and tobacco tax-free,...

Berlin's new Brandenburg International BER airport is decidedly unlucky. Not only has its opening been delayed by a decade, but its debut is taking place at one of the worst times in the history of aviation. The covid pandemic continues to have a dramatic effect on passenger demand. The second wave of...

On 9 December, Air Canada announced the launch of biometric boarding: a first for a Canadian carrier departing from the United States. The airline chose San Francisco airport for the launch, but other US hubs should be involved "in the near future". Passenger volunteers - this new boarding format...

Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe, made a bitter assessment last week at the virtual congress of European airports. The overall figures, including data up to 15 November, show that passenger traffic at European airports fell by 81 %. A symbolic threshold was crossed on 15 November....

Business travellers on the Lufthansa and Swiss networks are about to discover a new travel route for their business trips via Frankfurt and Munich. The two German airports will be the first to offer the new biometric system adopted by Star Alliance. It is based on the NEC I:Delight biometrics and identity management software developed by...

The situation remains difficult for air traffic departing from Paris. So says the ADP Group in its latest traffic analysis. In October, the two Paris hubs of Orly and Roissy-CDG welcomed 2.3 million passengers. This represents a fall in traffic of 75.6 % compared with...

The return of curfews and population reconfinements in an increasing number of European countries should result in a further slowdown in air traffic. And exacerbate the risk of insolvency for many regional airports in the coming months. This is the alarmist assessment of ACI-Europe, which predicts the disappearance of airports altogether...

How has traffic in Brussels fared since the start of the pandemic? Léon Verhallen - It will come as no surprise to anyone that traffic has literally collapsed. At the end of September we welcomed 5.85 million passengers, compared with 20.1 million for the same period in 2019. We had seen a recovery with the...