{"id":170811,"date":"2024-03-25T12:20:10","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T11:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=170811"},"modified":"2024-03-25T16:09:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:09:03","slug":"french-airports-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/french-airports-2023","title":{"rendered":"French airports struggling to return to pre-Covid levels"},"content":{"rendered":"

French airport traffic figures for 2023<\/strong> have been falling one after the other since the beginning of February. Often through triumphant press releases, based on a an upturn in traffic that continued last year<\/strong>. This is confirmed by theUnion of French Airports (UAF)<\/strong> in its annual report.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Last year, traffic at French airports totalled 198.68 million commercial passengers, down by just 7.3% compared with 2019<\/strong>. The increase in traffic compared with 2022 amounts to +14,2%<\/strong>. This represents almost 25 million additional passengers. If only traffic in mainland France is taken into account, passenger numbers reached 186.04 million, down 7.6% on 2019<\/strong>the last year before Covid. As a result, figures above the pre-Covid period for all airport traffic are not expected until 2025...<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A recovery, but weaker than elsewhere in Europe<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

According to UAF, the level of traffic is equivalent to that of the previous year. 2017<\/strong>. And the recovery remains less strong in France<\/strong> than in the other countries of the European Union (-5.8% compared with 2019). There are many reasons for this recovery, which is probably slower than initially expected, starting with a long-haul demand has not returned to all markets<\/strong> last year, particularly in Asia. This explains the performance of Roissy-CDG airport, where traffic in 2023 was 11.5% lower than in 2019.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Another factor is the <\/strong>cancellation of domestic flights from Orly<\/strong> <\/a>the government and a general reduction in frequencies on domestic routes<\/strong>. In addition an anaemic recovery in business travel<\/strong> by plane and the rejection of air transport by some travellers on environmental grounds<\/strong>A rejection that has grown over the last year. The UAF therefore forecasts that domestic traffic will fall by 1.7% in 2023.<\/strong>. This is still almost 21% below its pre-Covid levels.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In his analysis, UAF notes that the lack of dynamism in domestic traffic is weighing on the results of certain airports<\/strong>. This is the case, for example, of Lille-Lesquin (-14.8% compared with 2019), Toulouse-Blagnac (-18.9% compared with 2019), or a region like Brittany (-38.9% fewer passengers compared with 2019).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a>\r\n
Passenger traffic trends by French region (Graph: UAF)<\/span><\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In 2023, total traffic growth will therefore be driven by the recovery of the international traffic<\/strong>. The latter now accounts for 77% of traffic in mainland France in 2023<\/strong> (compared with 74% in 2022 and 2019). Or almost 144 million passengers<\/strong> 148.1 million in 2019. International business is now just 2.8% down on pre-Covid results.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Low-cost traffic on the increase<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This performance was underpinned by the ever-increasing success of the low-cost traffic<\/strong>. It achieved a passenger market share of 43.2%<\/strong>35.1% in 2019. Last year, low-cost airlines attracted almost 10 million more passengers than in 2019. A total of 80.4 million passengers<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Visit Paris<\/strong> (Roissy and Orly), its share of total traffic is 28%<\/strong> (61.3% at Orly and 12% at CDG). But this share rises to 61.4% at major regional airports<\/strong> -those with more than 5 million passengers. 17 airports have low-cost traffic in excess of 70% <\/strong>with records at Beauvais (99.7%), Perpignan (92.3%), Tarbes (85.3%), Nantes (79.7%), Strasbourg and Lille (both with 78.5%). At the other major airports, low-cost airlines have a market share of around 50% at Lyon, Nice and Toulouse, 55% at Marseille and around 65% at Montpellier and Basel-Mulhouse.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n