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 June 2024[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 3,3 million passengers on international flights[2], 84.6% waited less than 10 minutes, 13.9% between 10 and 30 minutes, 1.3% between 30 and 45 minutes and 0.2% more than 45 minutes.
- At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 970 000 passengers on international flights, 91.7% waited less than 10 minutes, 8% between 10 and 30 minutes and 0.2% between 30 and 45 minutes.
Events resulting in waiting times of over 30 minutes:
At Paris-Charles de Gaulle /
Week 23: 44 events impacting around 10,500 passengers, with an average waiting time of 41 minutes.
Week 24: 27 events impacting around 6,190 passengers, with an average waiting time of 40 minutes.
Week 25: 19 events impacting around 4,500 passengers, with an average waiting time of 42 minutes.
Week 26: 31 events impacting around 8,300 passengers, with an average time of 41 minutes.
At Paris-Orly /
Week 23: 2 events impacting around 170 passengers, with an average waiting time of 34 minutes.
Week 24: 5 events impacting around 500 passengers, with an average waiting time of 40 minutes.
Week 25: 5 events impacting around 630 passengers, with an average waiting time of 38 minutes.
Week 26: 1 event impacting around 100 passengers, with an average waiting time of 32 minutes.
Focus on some events:
- Sunday, June 9th, between 8:45 and 9:55 a.m., at the arrivals border between Terminal 2E and 2F at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, the large number of passengers not eligible for the PARAFE airlocks meant that police officers in charge of aubette controls were stretched to the limit. This resulted in longer waiting times for reinforcements to arrive. Around 500 passengers not eligible for PARAFE airlocks waited an average of 55 minutes.
- Friday, June 21st, between 09:00 and 11:15, departures at Terminal 1 at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, following the failure provided to the Border Police control software, a manual control system was activated by the police. The reinforcement of border guards was quickly put in place (all control positions were available) to absorb and alleviate the waiting time, and a measure to lighten controls was put in place. Paris Airport teams made announcements to inform passengers of the situation, explaining the slowdown; hosts and hostesses were mobilised to assist the most vulnerable customers, and bottles of water and fans were also distributed. Passengers with imminent flights were given priority. Around 1,200 passengers waited up to 75 minutes on average.
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Increased Border Police staffing levels for major departures
At the same time, the number of PARAFE airlocks has been increased by 60% compared with summer 2023, with 192 airlocks distributed between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. |
Details of monthly results for June 2024 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.
[1] In May 2024: at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, out of nearly 4 million international passengers, 85.1% waited less than 10 minutes, 13.2% between 10 and 30 minutes, 1.4% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 0.3% more than 45 minutes. At Paris-Orly, out of nearly 1,2 million international passengers, 91.1% waited less than 10 minutes, 8.6% between 10 and 30 minutes and 0.3% more than 45 minutes.
[2] Passengers who have crossed a border on departure, on connection or on arrival at Paris-Charles de Gaulle or Paris-Orly are taken into account (not therefore passengers on domestic or Schengen flights).
