May 2024 barometer of waiting times at Paris Airports' border controls

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 May 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 4 million passengers on international flights [2], 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 passengers on international flights, 91.6% waited less than 10 minutes, 8.1% 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 18: 8 events impacting around 4,150 passengers, with an average waiting time of 43 minutes.
Week 19: 12 events impacting around 5,530 passengers, with an average waiting time of 42 minutes.
Week 20: 18 events impacting around 5,900 passengers, with an average waiting time of 41 minutes.
Week 21: 25 events impacting around 12,350 passengers, with an average time of 45 minutes.
Week 22: 28 events impacting around 8,960 passengers, with an average time of 43 minutes.

At Paris-Orly /
Week 18: 4 events impacting around 430 passengers, with an average waiting time of 40 minutes.
Week 19: 2 events impacting around 170 passengers, with an average waiting time of 39 minutes.
Week 20: 3 events impacting around 230 passengers, with an average waiting time of 37 minutes.
Week 21: 2 events impacting around 180 passengers, with an average waiting time of 36 minutes.
Week 22: 6 events impacting around 730 passengers, with an average waiting time of 44 minutes.

Focus on some events:

- On Sunday May 26, between 10:20am and 12:00am, the number of border guards mobilized at Terminal 1 at Paris-Charles de Gaulle was unable to absorb the flow of passengers. Paris Airport teams set up an early warning system, broadcasting audible announcements to explain the slowdown, reinforcing reception staff to assist passengers in need, and distributing bottles of water. Around 650 passengers waited up to 50 minutes.

- On Sunday May 26, between 7:30am and 10:45am, a battery of 5 of the 16 PARAFE airlocks in Terminal 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle broke down, at the height of the traffic peak. Groupe ADP' teams and the manufacturer's technicians were able to restart the airlocks after around 40 minutes, but the shortage of Parafe airlocks led to long waiting times: some 3,500 passengers waited up to 1 hour.

- On Friday May 31, between 10.20am and 12.30pm, the number of border guards initially planned for departures from Terminal 1 at Paris-Charles de Gaulle was not sufficient to absorb the large flow of passengers during this period. Reinforcements of border guards at arrivals helped to limit the number of passengers affected. Around 600 passengers waited up to 50 minutes.

Maximum commitment for major departures and the Paris 2024 Games This summer, a total of 2,000 reinforcements from the Border Police, the European border guard Frontex agency and foreign police officers will be mobilized at Paris Airports, between July 12tth and September 15th. This unprecedented mobilization of Ministry of the Interior staff will make it possible, in particular, to guarantee 100% arming of PARAFE booths and airlocks, and to provide a special welcome for sports delegations. At the same time, the number of PARAFE airlocks has been increased by 60% compared with summer 2023, with 192between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports. As a reminder, PARAFE airlocks are automated facial recognition border crossing points, accessible to adult passengers with biometric passports. In addition to travelers of the 27 nationalities of the European Union, they are accessible to some sixty other nationalities on departures, and some fifteen nationalities on arrivals. Last summer, around a third of arriving passengers at Paris-Charles de Gaulle used them

Details of monthly results for May 2024 regarding Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly:

Share of departing and arriving passengers waiting by waiting time range

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 April 2024: at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, out of nearly 3 million international passengers, 84.7% waited less than 10 minutes, 13.4% between 10 and 30 minutes, 1.4% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 0.6% more than 45 minutes. At Paris-Orly, out of nearly 824,000 international passengers, 91.1% waited less than 10 minutes, 8.6% between 10 and 30 minutes and 0.3% between 30 and 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).

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