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Charles de Gaulle Airport

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File:ADP logo 2005.gif
The new logo of Aéroports de Paris used since 6 June 2005

Charles de Gaulle International Airport (IATA: CDG, ICAO: LFPG) (French: Aéroport Roissy-Charles de Gaulle), also known as Roissy Airport (or just Roissy in French), in Paris, is one of Europe's principal aviation centres, as well as France's main international airport. It is named after Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), leader of the Free French Forces and founder of the French Fifth Republic. It is located near Roissy, 25 km to the north-east of Paris. The construction of this airport lasted about 10 years.

In 2006, Charles de Gaulle Airport ranked second in Europe in terms of passenger traffic with 56,808,967 passengers [1], behind London Heathrow Airport (67,530,223), and just above Frankfurt International Airport (52,810,683). In terms of plane movements, Charles de Gaulle Airport was number one in Europe with 541,566 planes [2], above Frankfurt International Airport (489,406) and Heathrow (477,029). In terms of cargo traffic, Charles de Gaulle Airport was second in Europe in 2006 with 1,854,950 metric tonnes (2,068,928 US tons) [3], below Frankfurt (2,127,797 metric tonnes), but above Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (1,559,787 metric tonnes).

CDG is connected to the RER urban rail network, providing services into central Paris three to four times per hour, and the high-speed rail TGV network. SNCF French Rail operates direct TGV services to several French stations from CDG, including Angers, Avignon, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Le Mans, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Nîmes, Poitiers, Rennes, Toulouse, Tours, and Valence.

Also codeshared is Thalys International's service to Brussels's South station and a daily service to Brussels National Airport.

The other important airport in the Paris area is Orly Airport. The third main airport serving Paris is Paris-Beauvais-Tillé Airport, which mainly serves low-cost airlines.

Geography

Charles de Gaulle Airport extends over 32.38 km² (12.5 sq. miles) of land. The choice of this vast area was made based on the limited number of potential relocations and expropriations and the possibility to further expand the airport in the future. It straddles three départements and seven communes:

Management of the airport, however, is solely under the authority of Aéroports de Paris, which also manages Orly International Airport, Le Bourget Airport, and several smaller airports in the suburbs of Paris.

History

Avant-garde design of airport interior

The planning and construction phase of what was known back then as Aéroport de Paris Nord (Paris North Airport) began in 1966. On March 8, 1972, the airport, renamed Charles de Gaulle International Airport, began service. Terminal 1 was built to an avant-garde design consisting of a ten-floor high circular building surrounded by seven satellite buildings each with four gates. The main architect was Paul Andreu, who was also in charge of the extensions during the following decades.

The grassy lands on which the airport is located are notorious for hosting a large population of rabbits and hares, which can clearly be seen by aeroplane passengers at certain times of the day. The airport organizes periodic hunts and captures to keep the population to manageable levels. [4]

Corporate identity

The Frutiger typeface was commissioned for use in the airport, and implemented on signs throughout the building in 1975. Initially called Roissy, it was renamed for its designer Adrian Frutiger.

Until 2005, every P.A. announcement made at Terminal 1 was preceded by a distinctive chime, nicknamed "Indicatif Roissy" and composed by Bernard Parmegiani in 1971. (Audio sample)

Although a new chime is in use inside the terminals, "Indicatif Roissy" is still played before announcements on the inter-terminal buses.

Merhan Karimi Nasseri

On 26 August 1988, Merhan Karimi Nasseri found himself held at Charles de Gaulle airport by immigration. He claimed he was a refugee, but had had his refugee papers stolen. After years of bureaucratic wrangling, it was concluded that Nasseri had entered the airport legally and could not be expelled from its walls; but since he had no papers, there was no country to deport him to either, leaving him in residential limbo. Nasseri continued to live within the confines of the airport until August 2006, even though French authorities have since made it possible for him to leave if he so wished. He was the inspiration for the 2004 film The Terminal. He was hospitalised in August 2006 and his current location is unknown.

Collapse of Terminal 2E

CDG Terminal 2

Terminal 2E, with a daring design and wide open spaces, was CDG's newest addition. However, on 23 May, 2004, not long after its inauguration, a portion of Terminal 2E's ceiling collapsed early in the day, near Gate E50, killing four people [5]. The Chinese government reported that two of the dead were Chinese travellers, and another of the dead was reported to be of Czech nationality. Three other people were injured in the collapse. Terminal 2E had been inaugurated in 2003 after some delays in construction and was designed by Paul Andreu. Administrative and judicial enquiries were started. Coincidentally, Andreu had also designed Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport, which collapsed while under construction on September 28, 2004.

Before this accident, ADP had been planning for a public stock offering in 2005 with the new terminal as a major attraction for investors. The partial collapse and indefinite closing of the terminal just before the beginning of summer could seriously hurt the airport's business plan.

In February 2005, the results from the administrative inquiry were published. The experts pointed out that there was no single fault, but rather a number of causes for the collapse, in a design that had little margins of safety. According to them, the concrete vaulted roof was not resilient enough and had been pierced by metallic pillars, and some openings weakened the structure. Sources close to the enquiry also disclosed that the whole building chain had worked as close to the limits as possible, so as to reduce costs. Paul Andreu denounced the building companies for having not correctly prepared the reinforced concrete.

On March 17, 2005, ADP decided to tear down and rebuild the whole part of Terminal 2E (the "jetty") of which a section had collapsed, at a cost of approximately €100 million [6]. The reconstruction will replace the innovative concrete tube style of the jetty with a more traditional steel and glass structure. Construction will be completed by summer 2008, in the meantime two temporary departure lounges have been constructed in the vicinity of the terminal that replicate the capacity of 2E before the collapse.

Incidents

On 19 September 1989, UTA Flight 772 exploded over the Sahara Desert while on the second leg of the Brazzaville-Ndjamena-Paris route, killing all on board.

On 24 December, 1994, Air France Flight 8969 was hijacked shortly after it took off from Algiers to Paris. It was flown to Marseille, where hijackers wanted it to be refuelled in order to run it into the Eiffel Tower. French commandos intervened and shot all four hijackers dead.

On 17 July, 1996, TWA Flight 800, which was bound for Charles de Gaulle International Airport from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, exploded near Long Island.

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde bound from Charles de Gaulle Airport for JFK crashed into the nearby hotel of Hotelissimo in Gonesse after coming in contact with material that had been left by another plane on the runway. The Concorde was on a German charter flight for a tour company. Everyone on board died, as did four people on the ground.

On 22 December, 2001, an Al-Qaida terrorist named Richard Reid tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes onboard American Airlines Flight 63, which was headed from Charles de Gaulle to Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida. He was subdued after a passenger smelled sulphur.

Terminals

Terminal

Charles de Gaulle International Airport has three terminals. Terminal 2 was built for Air France, but now hosts other airlines as well. The third terminal (T3, formerly T9) hosts charter and low cost airlines, such as easyJet.

The so-called "terminal 2" is actually not really a terminal, but rather a name applied to six distinct so-called "halls", which each possess a letter (from A to F). In other airports, such as JFK or LAX, these "halls" would simply be called terminals, so that Charles de Gaulle International Airport can be more properly described as having eight terminals altogether. When landing at or taking off from Charles de Gaulle International Airport, one should always know precisely which of the eight terminals/halls the plane lands or takes off from, as these can be located quite far apart from each other. The eight terminals/halls are indicated distinctly on plane tickets: 1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F, 3.

The six halls at Terminal 2, the newest part of the airport, have their own RER and TGV station underneath. Passengers may reach trains going to Paris or to other French and foreign cities by going through passages and moving walkways. Facilities, especially seating and catering, are extremely limited in terminal 2 and compare poorly with other more modern European airports.

In 2006, the French government expressed the wish to designate certain terminals of French airports as "high-security" terminals that would handle flights to sensitive locations, such as the US and Israel. Terminal 2E is planned to be the high security terminal at CDG with the installation of more rigorous security controls planned during the course of 2007. At the start of the Winter timetable in 2006, Air France moved most of its flights to the US to 2E.

FIDS at Charles de Gaulle International Airport

The RER station for Terminal 1 is quite distant from Terminal 1, and this terminal must, in fact, be reached using a free shuttle bus from the RER station. Shuttle buses also link Terminals 1, 2 (and its associated TGV station) and 3.

Starting with April 4, 2007, a VAL transit system, CDGVAL, links all the eight terminal/halls.

Expansion Plans

Apart from the reconstruction of Terminal 2E, two major terminal extensions are underway as of 2007.

The construction of Satellite 3 (or S3) to the immediate west of Terminals 2E and 2F will provide further jetways for large capacity airlines, and specifically the Airbus 380. Check-in and baggage handling will be provided by the existing infrastructure in Terminals 2E and 2F. Satellite 3, whose construction can be seen by arriving passengers at Terminals 2E and 2F, is scheduled to open in the first half of 2008. A further Satellite 4 is planned to open in 2012 to provide additional capacity, again relying on the check-in and baggage handling infrastructure of 2E and 2F.

Construction began on a new terminal building, Terminal 2G, to the west of the S3 construction site in September 2006 with the first stone of the new building itself laid in March 2007. It will be connected to the Terminal 2 complex by shuttle buses and eventualy an extension of the CDGVAL shuttle train service due to open in Spring 2007. 2G will be a Schengen terminal (and thus have no customs control) and will handle Air France regional and European traffic and provide small capacity planes (up to 150 passengers) with a faster turn-around time than is currently possible by enabling them to park close to the new terminal building and boarding passengers primarily by bus. Opening is planned for the Winter season of 2008.

Appearances in films

  • In the video of the U2 song Beautiful Day the band can be seen walking through the airport.
  • The check-in area of Terminal 2F is a favourite film location for French directors and can frequently be seen in French films that require an airport location.
  • Decalage Horaire (Jet Lag) 2002.

Photography restrictions

On November 7 2005, prefectoral decision 05-4979 was issued, relating specifically to Charles de Gaulle airport. The law prohibits photographs being taken for private use of anything moving (e.g. aircraft) or not moving (e.g. buildings) within the "zone reservée" (the restricted area) from the "zone publique" (the public area). It is not clear whether the public area refers to all areas from which the airport is visible, or only to areas within the grounds of the airport. The law is much to the consternation of plane spotters [7], but some authorizations can be obtained.

Airlines

Terminal 1

Terminal 1 old check in point
File:Airport cdg t1 h4.jpg
Terminal 1 new check-in

Terminal 2

Hall A (Terminal 2A)

Hall B (Terminal 2B)

Hall C (Terminal 2C)

Hall D (Terminal 2D)

Hall E (Terminal 2E)

  • Air France (Atlanta, Boston, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Chicago-O'Hare, Detroit, Djibouti, Houston-Intercontinental, Libreville, Los Angeles, Miami, New York-JFK, Newark, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro-Galeão, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma [begins June 11, 2007], Santiago, Tel Aviv, Washington-Dulles)
  • Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, New York-JFK)
  • Northwest Airlines (Detroit)

Hall F (Terminal 2F)

  • Air France (Amsterdam, Bangalore, Bangui, Barcelona, Beirut, Biarritz, Bogota, Bordeaux, Casablanca, Chennai, Conakry, Damascus, Dubai, Düsseldorf, Geneva, Jeddah, Johannesburg, Lagos, London-Heathrow, Luanda, Lyon, Madrid, Malabo, Manchester, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Montréal, N'Djamena, Nantes, Nice, Nouakchott, Osaka-Kansai, Pointe-à-Pitre, Pointe Noire, Port Harcourt, Riyadh, Rome-Fiumicino, Seoul-Incheon, Tehran-Mehrabad, Tokyo-Narita, Toronto-Pearson, Toulouse, Tunis, Venice, Yerevan)
    • Brit Air (Newcastle, Southampton)
    • CityJet (Birmingham, Dublin, Edinburgh, Gothenburg-Landvetter, London-City, Zürich)
    • Régional (Aberdeen, Verona)
  • Alitalia (Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)
  • Japan Airlines (Nagoya-Centrair, Tokyo-Narita)
  • KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Amsterdam)
  • Korean Air (Seoul-Incheon)
  • Middle East Airlines (Beirut)

Terminal 3 (formerly T9)

See also

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles de Gaulle International Airport.

General

Collapse of Terminal 2E

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