It's a centenary that goes to sleep. Paris Orly Airport saw its last commercial takeoff on Tuesday evening, before a temporary closure at 11.59pm due to the collapse of air traffic caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Only 10 aircraft movements on the runways
A last day marked by only ten aircraft movements on the runways, and a thousand travelers, against 600 take-offs and landings and 90,000 passengers in normal times. An inevitably very special day for Michel Landel, head of operations at Orly: "I have never experienced this situation in my career, and neither has the company. It is truly a rather unique phenomenon." Not yet fully closed, the airport infrastructure remains "under surveillance", to be able to "prepare for a recovery as soon as possible," he said.
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"One billion less turnover" for the ADP group
While the rest of Parisian commercial air traffic will be redirected to Roissy, Orly will therefore operate by day as it usually does by night: the airport will thus still be able to accommodate diverted emergency, state or health flights, and its control tower will remain active. A procedure that should allow Aéroports de Paris (ADP) to make some savings, while the CEO of the Augustin de Romanet group estimated this Tuesday morning on Europe 1 the loss at "one billion in turnover".