Reception, competitiveness: ADP wants to "adapt" Roissy without "gigantism" by 2035

"Without adjustments," the manager Aéroports de Paris believes that reception at the airport located north of Paris "would be provided with a very degraded quality of service," including "a sharp increase in waiting times."

The CEO of the airport operator, Philippe Pascal, spoke of "a decisive moment for the future of the airport and the ADP group." "Intermodality, particularly rail, will be at the heart" of this development project, which he described as "anti-gigantism" during a press briefing.

There are no new runways or additional terminals on the agenda: four years after abandoning the controversial project to expand the airport through the construction of a fourth terminal, ADP has indicated that its "development model will no longer be that of Terminal 4, aiming for a massive, one-piece increase in its capacity," but rather "a more gradual and more sober approach to new construction," "without oversizing capacity."

The objective is to "support the growth in traffic, even moderate" at Roissy-CDG, to "offer a low-carbon airport model" and to "preserve the dynamic of job creation at the airport" - which today relies on nearly 90.000 employees for reception, security and baggage transport.

The cost of the first phase of the project is estimated at "€3,5 billion to €4,5 billion between 2025 and 2035, entirely borne by ADP," Justine Coutard, the group's deputy CEO, told AFP.

Starting in 2030, a boarding lounge will be created to the east of Terminal 2E "to improve the quality of service offered to passengers, and thus the competitiveness of the Air France hub." An additional boarding lounge will also be built at the western end of Terminal 2A.

"Fierce competition"

ADP also announced "the redesign of the main international border areas, with adapted and better-sized buildings, to guarantee a better quality of service."

Thus, at Terminal 1, "a project for a new border crossing area, (...) between the historic terminal and the international boarding lounge, is being studied", while at Terminal 2E, "the arrival border crossing will be transferred to a new building with a better experience: 4,5 m ceiling and daylight".

On the transport side, the internal automatic metro line "Lisa" will be extended to facilitate connections between the boarding lounges of the Air France hub, and "a second automatic metro entirely dedicated to connections" will be launched.

The project also plans to develop the SNCF train station located in Terminal 2 of Roissy-CDG, by creating a "train/plane junction building between CDG2 station and Terminal 2E", and by "facilitating the journey from the baggage claim rooms to the station (...) for passengers returning to Paris by public transport, or customers connecting to the main lines".

For Anne Rigail, CEO of Air France, this project is a "response" to "fierce competition from other international airports," and it is necessary to "rise to the level of the best international standards."

ADP indicates that it has launched a "voluntary public consultation" on its project, open from April 8 to July 8 with 800 municipalities and on the website cdgetvous.groupe-adp.com.

Beyond this first phase, the group is considering a second phase of developments for 2050 which will be "strictly correlated to the observed growth in platform traffic."

The hypothesis favored to date by ADP "is the creation of additional international boarding lounges to the north of the platform, with a capacity of 8 million passengers each", while "the extension of the connecting metro network in the international zone could then be carried out, to connect all the boarding lounges".