“At Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, we currently have 58% of 2019 traffic and 60% at Orly,” said Augustin de Romanet, Chairman and CEO of the Aéroport de Paris (ADP) group, on Thursday.
This brings the traffic of the two airports since the beginning of the year to 32% of their attendance over the same period in 2019. Still, even with still low traffic, the lengthening of the queues is already being felt for The passengers.
"The border police (PAF) passage time, which was before about twenty seconds, now stands at around two minutes because of health checks," notes Marc Houalla, director of Roissy-Charles- de-Gaulle.
Likewise, recording times have increased tenfold.
Where before the operation took ninety seconds, it can take up to ten minutes for a provenance with complicated procedures.
"Result: up to an hour and a half of waiting at the PAF during rush hour.
Expand automatic passport control
In an attempt to reduce delays, ADP obtained, in July 2021, the reopening of the automated rapid passage at the external borders (Parafe), the automatic passport control devices, which had been closed due to the epidemic. “They can only be used for people from the European Union who have been vaccinated. We assigned ADP personnel just outside to check the QR codes of the health pass and the CNIL authorized us to verify identities, ”says Marc Houalla.
The director of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport does not want to stop there.
“Next step: the system must be extended to passengers benefiting from Air France's Ready2Fly and similar systems from other airlines.
This will allow the PAF to concentrate on the rest of the control operations.
"For the extended deadlines during registration, the director admits" not having found a solution yet. "
No Omicron effect yet
Another difficulty is the screening inspection points. "A lot of people now go for a walk with a hydro-alcoholic gel or a disinfectant," notes Marc Houalla. It has become so natural that people forget about it and it slows down the search operations. »Disinfectant or not, vials of more than 100 ml must be taken out of the bag and placed in a transparent plastic bag. Above 100 ml, they must be destroyed.
To limit the phenomenon, the single common queue for the 15 filtering stations of terminals 2B and 2D will be fitted with reminder panels so that as they queue up, passengers prepare their belongings. Enough to save a few more precious seconds or minutes to then multiply by the number of passengers. "We improve the processes with tweezers," says the director. But if we don't find solutions before the traffic returns to normal, it will be horrible. "
Good news anyway, while the first cases of the Omicron variant have just been detected on French territory, this new form of Covid has not, to date, had a significant effect on the activity of Paris airports. . "The seven countries put on the list of flight suspension by France
(South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Eswatini, which we used to call Swaziland)
only represent six flights per day at Roissy.
For the moment, it is not material ”, entrusted the CEO.
Even if he recalls that he has "set up with the border police of targeted controls of all passengers arriving from southern Africa".
Regarding the clashes in Guadeloupe and Martinique, Augustin de Romanet indicates that he is still unaware of what order, "but that it will surely have an impact".