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Nicolas Zaugra
Published on
Nov. 6, 2024 at 11:15 a.m.
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The national airline Air France continues to develop its presence at Lyon Saint-Exupéry airport, the French “third air hub” for it after the two airports of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly.
During a press conference on Tuesday November 5, 2024 in Lyon, the famous airline which operates three brands (Air France, KLM and Transavia) took stock of its regional ambitions.
Two new Transavia lines in Lyon Saint-Exupéry
The company first announced the opening of two new routes for its subsidiary Transavia, which offers low-cost flights in an increasingly competitive sector. Facing Volotea or Easyjet also present in Saint-Exupéry, the green and white company will soon offer flights to L'Île de Sal (Cape Verde) and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).
The flights will be operated from December 15, 2024. Air France prefers to develop its low-cost airline which now allows direct connections from Lyon to many holiday destinations, for example Dubai, Agadir, Seville, Algiers, Tunis, Marrakech, Le CairoPalma, Dakar…
Air France prioritizes flights in France and to its Paris “hub”
The Air France brand focuses on domestic flights in France to connect Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Caen and Rennes. “The connections from Lyon also make it possible to ensure connections to our two main hubs of Roissy and Amsterdam with our subsidiary KLM,” explains Stéphane Lamarrigue, Sales Director for the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Air France-KLM.
But a line will soon no longer be operated between Lyon and Strasbourg due to lack of profitability. “Attendance has declined, the train is taking up more and more space on the market like teleworking, for us, it was no longer relevant to maintain this line economically beyond March 2025,” continues the company manager . The Spanish competitor Volotea took advantage of this by very quickly announcing the opening of a line between the two cities.
No direct long-haul flights planned for Lyon
For the head of Air France, the priority is to “develop our major hubs for long-haul flights”, continues Stéphane Lamarrigue. Concretely, the company continues to develop the model of correspondence between Lyon and Charles-de-Gaulle to then reach dozens of destinations around the world, in America, Africa, Asia, etc.
Concretely, direct flights Lyon-New-York, Lyon-Miami or Lyon-Shanghai will continue to be operated via Paris or Amsterdam. Even Lyon-London are connected. “We re-evaluate the possibilities regularly,” affirms the regional director while confirming that the launch of a Lyon-New York is absolutely not envisaged.
The Lyon-Paris TGV connection is developing
But is this correspondence system a good strategy at a time of criticism of the aviation model, a particularly polluting sector? Stéphane Lamarrigue ensures that the train connection service to Paris is developing more and more. “Our Train+ Air offer, which consists of booking a train to Paris or Roissy station and a long-haul flight at the same time, is progressing more and more,” he says.
“There is a growing customer demand who want to use the plane less over short distances. We have had a partnership with the SNCF for 30 years, 42 French stations are directly connected to Roissy and Orly, which benefits from the proximity of Massy TGV,” continues the Air France manager.
Lyon Part-Dieu is also “the best-selling French station in France for this train connection offer to Paris airports, which represents 30% of demand. Overall demand continues to grow at 20% in one year,” rejoices Stéphane Lamarrigue.
The company also claims to want to reduce its emissions by renewing 70% of its aircraft fleet, with the integration of new aircraft with C02 emissions 20 to 25% lower than older aircraft.
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