The "Direction de la Police aux Frontières" (head of French Border Police) and Groupe ADP have joined forces to draw up a monthly report on the waiting times encountered by passengers at the various border control points at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly Airports.
General trend observed in April 2023 [1]:
For the record, the maximum waiting times at the Border Police in airports, targeted by the French Prime Minister - during the inter-ministerial council on tourism on 26th July 2017, are 30 minutes for European nationals and 45 minutes for non-Europeans.
- At Paris-Charles de Gaulle: out of nearly 2.8 million passengers on international flights [2], 80% waited less than 10 minutes, 95% less than 30 minutes and 98% less than 45 minutes.
- At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 770,000 passengers on international flights, 90% waited less than 10 minutes, 99% less than 30 minutes and 100% less than 45 minutes.
Events resulting in waiting times of over 30 minutes [3]:
At Paris-Charles de Gaulle /
Week 14: 56 events affecting around 20,760 passengers, with an average waiting time of 45 minutes.
Week 15: 56 events affecting around 27,180 passengers, with an average waiting time of 50 minutes.
Week 16: 75 events affecting around 22,580 passengers, with an average waiting time of 50 minutes.
Week 17: 62 events affecting around 18,060 passengers, with an average waiting time of 50 minutes.
At Paris-Orly /
Week 14: 1 event affecting around 90 passengers, with an average waiting time of 30 minutes.
Week 15: 3 events affecting around 250 passengers, with an average waiting time of 35 minutes.
Week 16: 2 events affecting around 160 passengers, with an average waiting time of 40 minutes.
Week 17: 2 events affecting around 290 passengers, with an average waiting time of 35 minutes.
Flashbacks at some events:
On Saturday, April 8, at Paris-Charles de Gaulle terminal 1 departures from 9:00 to 11:00 am: the Easter weekend, marked by a high number of passengers on all platforms, required additional police personnel at terminals 2E and 2F of the airport. Reinforcements were sent to terminal 1 once the peak had passed in terminal 2. 800 passengers waited up to 1h50.
On Saturday, April 15, between 11:00 and 13:00, at Paris-Charles de Gaulle terminal 2E: the crossover of school vacations in zones A and B generated a significant traffic peak, with simultaneous departures and arrivals. The Border Police were not able to cope with these saturations. Approximately 1,500 passengers waited up to 70 minutes for arrivals, and nearly 3,500 passengers waited 85 minutes for departures.
On Saturday, April 22, at Paris-Charles de Gaulle terminal 2E departures from 8:30 to 10:00 am: it was a new day of holiday traffic with all three zones on vacation simultaneously. Terminal 2E recorded record international traffic. In order to relieve border controls as much as possible, some passengers were redirected to an alternative route by the Groupe ADP. Despite these measures, nearly 1,200 passengers were faced with waiting times of up to 70 minutes.
On Saturday, April 29, at Paris-Charles de Gaulle terminal 3 departures from 7:30 am to 11:00 am: 220 passengers were kept waiting for up to 2h15. The Border Police have prioritized border controls in terminals 1 and 2, which are busier, in order to avoid the saturation already observed during the school vacations.
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Deployment of the first contractual agents to reinforce the Border Police
The first administrative and contractual agents, selected and trained to reinforce the Police staff at border control checkpoints, have begun their missions in the Paris airports.
At Paris-Charles de Gaulle, the first class of 26 agents is now operational, and a second class of 130 agents will join the ranks by the first half of June. At Paris-Orly, 36 agents have already joined the service; 80 will arrive on May 24 to be assigned by mid-June.
With 272 agents on board at the Paris airports by mid-June, the objective announced in the March 29 press release of recruiting 255 additional agents by summer will be met and even exceeded.
Other contractual agents will be able to complete the staff throughout the summer, which will significantly increase the number of screening positions open simultaneously and thus improve waiting times.
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Details of monthly results for April 2023 regarding Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly:
Methodology: real time data from counting sensors
Since 2019, Groupe ADP has deployed tools to monitor and control passenger flows and waiting times. In particular, sensors allowing the number of passengers to be counted in real time in a queue have been deployed to equip the border crossing and safety control areas of Paris Airports. This is a real-time measurement tool that is automatically updated every five seconds.
It counts the number of passengers in a queue by measuring how long the last person to leave the queue has been waiting. Between 80 and 200 sensors are needed to cover an area, depending on its size. The data is fed into an operational performance monitoring tool that analyses what has happened in an operational day. It is the data extracted from these sensors that is used to set up this barometer.
Special case of CDG Terminal 1: this terminal has recently been reopened and is not yet fully equipped with waiting time monitoring tools. The deployment will be finalised by the summer and the results for Terminal 1 will thus be integrated into the barometer.
[1] At Paris-Charles de Gaulle: out of nearly 3.3 million passengers on international flights, 81% waited less than 10 minutes, 96% less than 30 minutes and 99% less than 45 minutes. At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 1,2 million passengers on international flights, 86% waited less than 10 minutes, 99% less than 30 minutes and 99% less than 45 minutes.
[2] Passengers who crossed the border on departure, in transit or on arrival at Paris-Charles de Gaulle or Paris-Orly are taken into account (therefore, not passengers on domestic or Schengen flights).
[3] Events impacting more than 50 passengers, per calendar week, are included. Two occurrences must be separated by 20 minutes, otherwise only one event is counted.
