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 December 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 2.4 million passengers on international flights[2], 5% waited less than 10 minutes, 18% between 10 and 30 minutes, 2.7% between 30 and 45 minutes and 0.9% waited 45 minutes or more.

- At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 825,500 passengers on international flights, 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% waited 45 minutes or more.

General trend observed in 2023:

• At Paris-Charles de Gaulle: out of nearly 34 million passengers on international flights, in 2023, 1% waited less than 10 minutes, 15.3% between 10 and 30 minutes, 2% between 30 and 45 minutes and 0.8% waited 45 minutes or more.
• At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 14 million passengers on international flights, in 2023, 2% waited less than 10 minutes, 9.3% between 10 and 30 minutes, 0.3% between 30 and 45 minutes and less than 0.1% waited 45 minutes or more.

December 2023

Events resulting in waiting times of over 30 minutes[3]:

At Paris-Charles de Gaulle /

- Week 49: 48 events impacting around 14,630 passengers, with an average waiting time of 46 minutes.

- Week 50: 51 events impacting around 17,330 passengers, with an average waiting time of 50 minutes.

- Week 51: 92 events impacting around 37,120 passengers, with an average waiting time of 47 minutes.

- Week 52: 34 events impacting around 9,590 passengers, with an average time of 41 minutes.

At Paris-Orly /

- Week 49: 1 event impacting around 60 passengers, with an average waiting time of 35 minutes.

- Week 50: 13 events impacting around 1,320 passengers, with an average waiting time of 39 minutes.

- Week 51: 7 events impacting around 1,060 passengers, with an average waiting time of 37 minutes.

- Week 52: 6 events impacting around 670 passengers, with an average waiting time of 38 minutes.

Focus on some events:

- Tuesday, December 12th, departures at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1, between 12:30am and 3:00pm, tensions on the number of border guards present meant that the departure traffic could not be absorbed, while some of the PARAFE airlocks were unavailable for maintenance. Around 500 passengers waited up to 80 minutes on average.

- Saturday, December 16th, departures at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1, between 9:00am and 2:30pm. despite all checkpoints being open, this first day of heavy traffic ahead of Christmas vacations was marked by long waiting times. The arrival of reinforcements of border guards and reception staff helped to limit the impact, but some 2,000 passengers waited up to 70 minutes on average during the morning.

- Tuesday, December 19th, arrivals at connections 2F – 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, between 8:00am and 1:00pm. Due to the mobilization of police forces on a larger-than-usual number of ancillary missions, the Hub's main connecting border line could not be armed to a level capable of absorbing the flow of passengers. Some 1,400 passengers, not eligible for PARAFE airlocks, waited up to 50 minutes.

- Thursday, December 21st, departures at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1, between 9:00am and 12:00 am. This heavy traffic period required the mobilization of police officers assigned to Terminals 2ABCD, which was also very busy, to reinforce the overloaded control posts at Terminal 1. All PARAFE airlocks were open, but the type of passengers not eligible for PARAFE (families, minors) during this school vacation period meant that they could not be fully used. Some 1,200 passengers waited up to 70 minutes.

- Friday, December 22nd, Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2E, in the morning. Terminal 2E experienced an unprecedented failure of its automated shuttle system linking the terminal's satellites. The system was only partially operational at 6:50 a.m., and then nominally at 8:40 a.m., instead of starting nominally at around 5:30 a.m. As a result, many passengers were held up in the screening areas between 5.30am and 8.30am, at the height of the traffic peak. Some 2,500 passengers waited more than 50 minutes.

- Sunday, December 24th, general breakdown of the PARAFE system at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly, from the start of operations until 10:00 am. This breakdown required the intervention of Border Police computer specialists to reactivate each of the borders. At Terminal 2E, this led to departures being given priority, resulting in up to an hour's wait at arrivals. In addition to audible announcements and messages on information screens, Paris Airport reception staff were on hand to inform and guide passengers.

[1] In November 2023: at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, out of nearly 3 million international passengers, 79.7% waited less than 10 minutes, 17% between 10 and 30 minutes, 2.5% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 0.8% more than 45 minutes. At Paris-Orly, out of nearly 850,000 international passengers, 90.2% waited less than 10 minutes, 9.2% between 10 and 30 minutes, 0.6% between 30 and 45 minutes and less than 0.1% 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).

[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.

Details of monthly results for December 2023 regarding Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly:

2023 Review

Key events:

- January 2023 : introduction of a barometer for waiting times at border controls at Paris airports.

- June/August 2023 :

Recruitment of around 430 contract and administrative staff for border control duties, to back up police officers.

Increase in the number of Paris Airport reception staff to guide and assist passengers in queues: 1,300 at Paris-CDG ( +20% compared with summer 2022), 500 at Paris-Orly (+20%).

Expansion of the number of nationalities eligible for automated parafe airlocks: more than 60 nationalities for departures (from age 18), and thirteen for arrivals (from age 12) → at Paris-CDG, the rate of airlock use has risen from 27% to 38% compared with last summer.

- September/October 2023, Rugby World Cup : recruitment of 70 additional police students at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and 30 at Paris-Orly + reinforcement of 45 Frontex border guards at Paris-CDG and a dozen at Paris-Orly.

- Year round :
PARAFE automated airlock reinforcement program : 188 airlocks at Paris-Charles de Gaulle et Paris-Orly by summer 2024 (+55 % on 2023).

Key figures

- 12,165 border police officers in France

- 1,687 at Paris-CDG

- 718 at Paris-Orly

ZOOM on Paris-Charles de Gaulle in 2023

ZOOM on Paris-Orly en 2023

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.