Too many and too expensive Breton airports, report says

• In its annual report, the Court of Auditors criticizes the Breton airport network.
• The institution believes that the region has too many airports and that small platforms are expensive for communities.
• Responding to the criticisms formulated, the vice-president of the region responsible for transport defends the Breton airport strategy.

The Brittany region has just been slapped on the fingers by the Court of Auditors. In its annual report published on Tuesday, the institution issued harsh criticisms of the Breton airport network, which it considers "obsolete" and too costly. It is essentially the small airports that are in the sights. Because of its insularity, Brittany has indeed bet a lot on air transport in the past to open up and develop economically. As a result, the region now has eight airports which carried 2.3 million passengers in 2018. But “traffic is, however, 80% concentrated on the Brest and Rennes platforms,” notes the Court of Auditors.

Why Rennes airport experienced an air gap last year https://t.co/Pe1Tn6NeRU

It therefore recommends that elected officials in the region “reconfigure the offer” and question the economic viability and the future of certain platforms such as Quimper, Lannion or Saint-Brieuc, which have only three of them transported 84,269 passengers in 2018. Because these small airport platforms are expensive for communities that have paid, according to the report, 45 million euros in subsidies for air development over the period 2012-2017.

"Today, the cost of this model, the prospects for changes in European regulations and growing environmental concerns imply an overhaul of the regional mobility strategy", underlines the report of the Court of Auditors, which also highlights the arrival of the LGV in 2017 which “brought the main Breton conurbations closer to Paris”.

Each airport "has a different vocation", estimates the region

Gérard Lahellec, vice-president of the Brittany region in charge of transport, moderately appreciates the criticisms made by the Court of Auditors. According to him, each Breton airport "has a different vocation". In Brest and Rennes, the objective of elected officials is to develop air traffic. But for that of Dinard, it is a question of "perpetuating the 650 jobs at Sabena Technics", a company specialized in the maintenance of planes and helicopters. As for that of Quimper, "the State has validated the public service obligation for the line connecting Orly". "I respect these noble magistrates but I have a little trouble understanding them", quips the elected official, questioned by 20 Minutes .

Gérard Lahellec also highlights the good economic health of the four airports owned by the region (Rennes, Brest, Dinard and Quimper). "They are all in operating balance, which is far from being the case everywhere in France," says the vice-president. In any event, the majority which currently sits in the region has not planned to overhaul its airport strategy, despite the tackle that the Court of Auditors has just addressed to it.

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• Rennes
• Transport
• Court of Audit
• Airport
• Society