The French regions: a powerful network
Friday 12, March 2010
With 700 daily flights, the French regional network is very dense: Air France operates 119 routes, including 84 linking the French regions without having to stopover in Paris. There are 34 routes from Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly to and from the main French cities, thus linking all of France to the rest of the world, not forgetting connecting opportunities at Air FRANCE KLM Group’s other hubs.
For example, passengers can fly from Toulouse to New York via the hubs at Paris-CDG or Amsterdam-Schiphol.
The Lyon hub, crossroads between the French regions and the rest of Europe
AIR FRANCE KLM’s third major hub, after Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam-Schiphol, Lyon-Saint Exupéry is a hub which links the main French cities to the rest of Europe and is perfectly integrated into the Group’s strategy.
Set up in 1997 and based around three connecting banks, the hub at Lyon-Saint-Exupéry offers fast and easy connections in less than 20 minutes thanks to its new boarding area in terminal 2.
It enables passengers to connect to 5 SkyTeam hubs: Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam-Schiphol, Prague, Rome and Milan-Malpensa and operates flights to 41 destinations including 18 with connections. With over 3.5 million passengers carried in 2009 including over a million in transit, it has confirmed its place as a euro-regional hub.
Lyon-Saint-Exupéry airport, located at the heart of France’s second most important city, also meets the travel needs of customers from the Rhône-Alpes region.
Paris-Orly airport: an essential part of the domestic network
Paris-Orly airport, located south of Paris, is the operational base for La Navette services, which, with departures every hour or half an hour on the four busiest domestic routes (Paris to Nice, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux), is an asset well-appreciated by domestic customers.
To save customers time at the airports concerned, there are dedicated La Navette sales and check-in counters and boarding lounges. In addition, the latest check-in time for flights to and from the French regions is just 20 minutes.
In 2009, La Navette flights carried over 5 million customers.
Two subsidiaries strongly implanted in the regional network
Brit Air has been an Air France partner airline for a long time. In 1983, it already operated flights for Air France, before becoming a subsidiary in 2000. Based in Morlaix, Brit Air is one of Europe’s top regional airlines. With a fleet of 40 regional aircraft in operation, it operates around 280 daily flights.
Régional, based in Nantes, was set up in 2001, the result of a merger between Regional Airlines, Proteus Airlines and Flandre Air, themselves Air France subsidiaries since 2000. It links all the main French cities with the rest of Europe and its network is organized around the hubs at Paris-CDG and Lyon and its domestic inter-regional routes. Régional operates close to 300 daily flights to 19 destinations in France and 21 in Europe, with a fleet of 59 aircraft in operation.
Terminal 2G at Paris-Charles de Gaulle: linking the French and European regions to the rest of the world
Terminal 2G was designed to integrate regional flights into the working order of the Air France hub at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, with around 50% of passengers taking connecting flights. Flight schedules are adapted to the hub’s 6 connecting banks, to ensure passengers have access to Air France and KLM’s entire short, medium and long-haul networks.
Aimed at business travellers from the Air France Group’s regional airlines, a new lounge opened in April 2009. With a surface area of 126 sq. m, it has 47 seats. Passengers can also enjoy a range of snacks and drinks, a relaxation area with comfortable armchairs, a work area, international press, TV and one hour free WiFi connection.
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