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 January 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: of nearly 2.7 million international passengers, 86.7% waited less than 10 minutes, 11.8% between 10 and 30 minutes, 1.1% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 0.4% more than 45 minutes.
- At Paris-Orly: of nearly 967,800 international passengers, 91.8% waited less than 10 minutes, 7.9% between 10 and 30 minutes, 0.2% between 30 and 45 minutes and less than 0.1% 45 minutes or more.
Events resulting in waiting times of over 30 minutes [2]:
At Paris-Charles de Gaulle /
Week 1: 37 events affecting around 9,300 passengers, with an average waiting time of 44 minutes.
Week 2: 22 events affecting around 6,500 passengers, with an average waiting time of 46 minutes.
Week 3: 44 events affecting around 37,120 passengers, with an average waiting time of 51 minutes.
Week 4: 11 events affecting around 8,590 passengers, with an average waiting time of 45 minutes
Week 5: 21 events affecting around 8,590 passengers, with an average waiting time of 47 minutes.
At Paris-Orly /
Week 1: 2 events affecting around 290 passengers, with an average waiting time of 40 minutes.
Week 2: 4 events affecting around 540 passengers, with an average waiting time of 40 minutes.
Week 3: 9 events affecting around 1,240 passengers, with an average waiting time of 48 minutes.
Week 4: 2 events affecting around 410 passengers, with an average waiting time of 46 minutes.
Week 5: 3 events affecting around 320 passengers, with an average waiting time of 43 minutes.
Flashbacks at some events:
- On the morning of Tuesday 16 January, arrivals at Terminal 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle were unable to cope with the flow of passengers with the number of police officers available. Departures were prioritised over arrivals, to ensure minimum delay to aircraft take-off. As a result, for the queue of passengers not eligible for the PARAFE airlocks, around 900 passengers had to wait between 45 and 80 minutes.
- On Thursday 18 January, following poor traffic conditions in the Ile-de-France region due to snow and a national strike organised by police unions, border controls were slowed down. The union action was lifted at the end of the morning, but the consequences of both phenomena were felt until mid-afternoon.
At Terminal 2E (departures, arrivals and connections 2E/2F), over the entire episode, almost 4,250 passengers waited around 1 hour, including 2,700 who waited up to 90 minutes. At Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 arrivals, between 13:00 and 16:00, around 300 passengers waited up to 1 hour.
- Sunday 21 January, at arrivals in Terminal 2B at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, between 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm, following a national breakdown of the SIS file (Schengen Information System or Schengen File), affecting the PARAFE airlocks from 1:45 pm until the evening, and the simultaneous arrival of many flights: reception staff had to modify the barricading of queues to direct passengers only to the control booths.
A maximum number of border guards were deployed from 2.45pm and airport staff were mobilised to assist passengers in need. This exceptional change to the barricade did not allow our monitoring tool to accurately count the number of passengers affected, but it is estimated that around 800 people waited more than 45 minutes.
Details of monthly results for January 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.
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[1] In December 2023, at Paris-Charles de Gaulle: of nearly 2.4 million international passengers, 78.5% waited less than 10 minutes, 18% between 10 and 30 minutes, 2.7% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 0.9% more than 45 minutes. At Paris-Orly: of nearly 25,500 international passengers, 87.1% waited less than 10 minutes, 12.4% between 10 and 30 minutes, 0.4% between 30 and 45 minutes and less than 0.1% 45 minutes or more.
[2] Included are passengers who crossed a border on departure, transfer or arrival at Paris-Charles de Gaulle or Paris-Orly (not including 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.
