Barely three years after celebrating 4 million passengers, Bordeaux Airport finished 2014 with passenger traffic numbers reaching almost 5 million. This year has shown good results for passenger traffic and new routes were opened, resulting in an increase in traffic of +7.1% compared with 2013, putting Bordeaux at the top of the large regional airports in France in terms of growth. In 2014, direct international flights represented 45% of traffic overall. The arrival in Bordeaux of the largest company worldwide in terms of its route network, Turkish Airlines, can only strengthen this trend. In 2015, the internationalisation of traffic is likely to continue, especially with the introduction of new direct flights to Athens, Prague, Dubrovnik and Glasgow.
90% of routes opened in 2014 are international
In 2014, global annual traffic reached 4.95 million passengers. International flights are also increasing steadily: 2,150,300 passengers, an exceptional growth rate of +113%* in 5 years.
2014 has been a year of strong growth in the network routes and saw a record 17 new destinations, 15 of them international, in the course of the year:
– London Stansted with Ryanair
– Amsterdam, Belfast, Brussels, Marrakesh with EasyJet
– Calvi, Figari, Fuerteventura, Naples, Palma, Pisa, Valencia with Volotea
– Heraklion with Aegean Airlines
– Geneva with Etihad Regional
– Zurich with Helvetic Airways
– Birmingham with Flybe
– Istanbul with Turkish Airlines
* international traffic at end 2009: 1,003,000 passenger
2014 also saw the arrival of 4 new scheduled airline companies at Bordeaux airport: Aegean Airlines, Etihad Regional, Helvetic Airways and Turkish Airlines. These are internationally renowned airlines flying into major international hubs.
Pascal Personne, Chairman of Bordeaux Airport, commented, “The opening of these new routes is testament to the increasing need for mobility in our region. We are proud to have launched so many new routes in 2014 and to have recorded the best growth rate of all the major French regional airports. This also confirms our desire to facilitate direct access for Bordeaux and the region to international destinations and the major global hubs and to provide more possibilities for our foreign passengers to come to our beautiful region.”
Best growth of the 5 top French regional airports
Source Airports: Results from end December 2014
NB: The 6th regional airport, Nantes, was up 6%.
European traffic soaring
In just 5 years, international passenger traffic has doubled. The key routes for 2014 are undoubtedly:
– Amsterdam (KLM and easyJet) with 237,500 passengers or + 62.2%
– and London (British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair), now served by 3 airports with 387,100 passengers or +24.6%.
With the opening of the billi terminal in 2010, new airlines have come to Bordeaux and as a result the European network has grown exponentially.
In 2014, for destinations in Benelux and Switzerland, new operators moved into existing routes such as easyJet in Amsterdam and Brussels or Etihad Regional in Geneva. Italy, Spain and the British Isles have benefitted from a large number of new destinations, 8 in all.
Domestic traffic remains stable
Scheduled national flights recorded 2,764,200 passengers, a drop of 1.1%. By volume of traffic, the most affected destination was Paris: Orly -0.4% and Charles-de-Gaulle -8.6%. For other destinations, results for Marseille were good (+15.7%) with Air France and for new destinations in 2014 to Corsica with Volotea: Ajaccio +11.8% and Bastia +3.1%
Highlights and innovations in 2014
Record annual traffic: 4,952,000 passengers
Record passenger traffic in 1 month: 510,600 passengers carried in July
Record number of routes opened: 17
Record number of international routes: 15
Digital innovations
Traffic on the Bordeaux Airport website is now well in excess of 2 million visitors per year. Note that the website for mobiles launched at the beginning of the year accounted for over a quarter of all connections.
More than 14,000 friends follow the Airport’s Facebook page and their engagement rate is one of the best in the airport sector.
Bordeaux is also the 2nd airport in France to provide Indoor Google Maps technology to guide passengers and plan their itinerary through the airport.
All these results show the advantages of investing in digital and mobile communication, areas where passengers are most expecting to see innovations.
Work carried out in 2014 also promises to produce some exceptional results in the future:
SSP, the new operator of bars and restaurants at the airport since 1st January 2014, has opened the first Starbucks in Bordeaux, as well as the Barista coffee shop in collaboration with Nespresso, and Ostrea, the first “airport oyster bar”.
The reorganisation of the P2 car park, merging the short-stay car parks together, means that we can offer a wider range of appropriate car parks and prices for travelling passengers and those picking up and dropping off.
Developments and challenges in 2015
Bordeaux Airport has started numerous structuring works for the future: the extension of the billi terminal, development of public transport to the city centre and the rail network, the operational launch of the “45ème parallèle” service hub project and the development of real estate projects. There are major investments scheduled for 2015.
Extension of the simplified-services billi terminal
In response to the increase in low-cost traffic and the demands of the airline companies, Bordeaux Airport has launched the construction of a new hall of 1,000m2 near the existing billi terminal, which will be specifically devoted to arrivals. The Departures building will be redeployed to house new boarding areas. Capacity will increase to 2.5 million passengers a year. Opening is scheduled for June 2015.
Aiming to improve transport links to the airport zone
In an economic and commercial zone with an estimated impact of 2.843 billion Euros*, improvement in the airport’s accessibility has become an urgent issue:
– improvements to the road network, in particular the principal roundabouts leading to the airport planned for the summer of 2015, are essential for the 5 million passengers, the 7,700 employees on the airport premises and the large number of drivers along the western Bordeaux ring road. More structural projects are expected in the medium term.
– two public transport projects are being prioritised by Bordeaux Métropole which will launch studies in 2015:
Airport<->City centre: creation of a link from the airport to Bordeaux by establishing public transport on the site itself with an extension of the tramway.
Airport<->Train station: creation of a public transport link between the airport and the rail network at Pessac Alouette or Pessac Arlac train stations.
*according to the survey carried out in 2012 by the Chamber of Industry and Trade of Bordeaux
Development of real estate assets
Bordeaux Airport has given itself the target of developing real estate and business installation activities, alone or in partnerships, in the northern and south-eastern zones of the airport. The northern zone has been integrated into a joint project with the Aéroparc, which is a facility devoted to stimulating the economic development of the aeronautical high technology sector in the urban area and region.
Moreover, for 2015 Airbus has just confirmed the installation of the E-Fan (electric plane) assembly plant in Mérignac. The project, supported by its subsidiary Volt’Air SAS, will constitute a 20 million-Euro investment and the creation of one hundred or so jobs.
The “45ème Parallèle” project
The future service hub known as the “45ème parallèle” will occupy an area of almost 7 hectares at the entrance to the airport premises, in the heart of one of the most dynamic economic zones in the Bordeaux conurbation. It is designed to be a flagship facility able to attract companies of a national or international scale, in particular those linked to the air sector.
Concerning traffic, new scheduled routes will open in 2015 with, in particular:
15/01/2015
