Coronavirus in France: Orly airport goes to sleep

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The hundred-year-old airport in the south of Paris is hosting its latest commercial flights on Tuesday 31 March before going to sleep, hit hard by the collapse of air traffic, in free fall since the emergence of the coronavirus. Monday, only 20 aircraft movements and a thousand passengers were recorded at Orly against 600 movements and 90,000 passengers for an ordinary day.

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As of Tuesday 11.59pm, Orly will close its doors. The handful of companies that still operated in the Ile-de-France airport - four out of more than a hundred - will be transferred to Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle (CDG), itself heavily affected by the crisis.

" I estimate that at CDG, we will have around 10,000 passengers per day, whereas in normal times, we have 200,000 passengers per day ", commented Monday on RTL Augustin de Romanet, the CEO of the Aéroports de Paris Group (ADP).

Traffic doubled over 20 years, hoped before the pandemic

A year ago, Orly, which has existed since 1918, inaugurated with great fanfare 80,000 square meters of new facilities intended to accommodate the ever-growing boom in air traffic. The prospects were ambitious: a doubling of traffic in 20 years worldwide.

Now, for an indefinite period, the centenary, which welcomed 32 million passengers in 2019, will only see state flights, medical flights and emergency diversions. The control tower will therefore remain active.

" Night " operation

" Orly by day, will have the same operation as Orly had by night " during the curfew period from 11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., Michel Mandelle, head of operations at Orly's aeronautical areas, told AFP.

Contrasting with the incessant ballet of planes on the runways a few weeks ago, just over 80 planes are now immobilized on the storage areas, a taxiway, a maintenance area and a concrete runway. A storage plan has been drawn up based in particular on the need to move the devices for maintenance.

In terms of shops, more than a hundred shops, bars and restaurants had to lower the curtain. The Red Cross took charge of the homeless who had taken up residence at the airport.

Air France only offers 10% of its offer

With travel restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus worldwide, air traffic in Europe has dropped by almost 80%, according to figures released last week by the International Air Transport Association (Iata). Air France, ADP's main customer, now offers only 10% of its usual offer. For most platforms, traffic currently boils down to repatriation flights and medical flights.

(With AFP)

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