The Border Police Directorate and Groupe ADP have partnered to assess the waiting times passengers experience at various border control points in Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports.
General trend observed in September 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 July 26, 2017, are 30 minutes for European nationals and 45 minutes for non-Europeans.
- At Paris-Charles de Gaulle: out of nearly 27 million passengers on international flights [2], 85.8% waited less than 10 minutes, 11.4% waited between 10 and 30 minutes, 1.8% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 1% waited more than 45 minutes.
- At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 840,000 passengers on international flights, 94% waited less than 10 minutes, 8% waited between 10 and 30 minutes, and 0.2% waited between 30 and 45 minutes.
[1] In July-August 2024, at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, out of nearly 6.2 million passengers on international flights , 94.5% waited less than 10 minutes, 4.1% between 10 and 30 minutes, 0.4% between 30 and 45 minutes and 0.2% more than 45 minutes. At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 2.3 million passengers on international flights, 97.4% waited less than 10 minutes, 2.4% between 10 and 30 minutes and 0.2% between 30 and 45 minutes.
[2] Passengers taken into account are those who passed through a border at departures, during transfers, or at arrivals at Paris-Charles de Gaulle or Paris-Orly (thus not applicable to passengers on domestic or Schengen flights).
Events resulting in waiting times of over 30 minutes:
At Paris-Charles de Gaulle /
Week 36: 7 events impacting around 2,520 passengers, with an average waiting time of 48 minutes.
Week 37: 6 events impacting around 1,100 passengers, with an average waiting time of 39 minutes.
Week 38: 63 events impacting around 22,990 passengers, with an average waiting time of 49 minutes.
Week 39: 54 events impacting around 22,500 passengers, with an average waiting time of 49 minutes.
At Paris-Orly /
Week 36: No events with more than 30 minutes of waiting time.
Week 37: 2 events impacting around 200 passengers, with an average waiting time of 34 minutes.
Week 38: 7 events impacting around 700 passengers, with an average waiting time of 44 minutes.
Week 39: 2 events impacting around 190 passengers, with an average waiting time of 41 minutes.
Focus on some events:
- Monday, September 16, 2024, at the arrivals of Terminal 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, between 7:00 AM and 3:00 PM, the Border Police staff present were unable to handle the surges in traffic with a situation complicated by a failure of the computer systems affecting both booth and PARAFE gate checks. The Paris Aéroport teams implemented their contingency plan (audio announcements explaining the delay, deployment of additional staff to assist passengers in need, distribution of water bottles, provision of seating for certain passengers, etc.). Approximately 3,500 passengers waited an average of 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Monday, September 16, at the arrivals of Terminal 2B at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, between 7:10 PM and 8:45 PM, the same explanation as for Terminal 2E, with strain on Border Police staff and PARAFE gate malfunctions, in the face of a traffic surge. Approximately 330 passengers waited an average of up to 50 minutes.
- Thursday, September 26, 2024, and Friday, September 27, at the arrivals of Terminal 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, between 7:00 AM and 2:00 PM: staff shortages and heavy traffic, approximately 4,000 passengers waited an average of 1 hour and 15 minutes.
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Worsening waiting times due to the departure of summer reinforcements Since mid-September, occurrences of waiting times exceeding 45 minutes, particularly at the heavily burdened border checkpoints at the arrivals of Terminal 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, have become more frequent. |
Details of monthly results for September 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.
