Covid-19 had been described as a trigger for some… and yet. Despite the weight of the aviation sector in greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore its responsibility for global warming, nearly 178 million passengers flew in France in 2024, or 99.1% of the 2019 level. , last year before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) announced on Thursday.
This recovery was weighed down by domestic traffic which continues to decline with only 27.4 million passengers, or 80.3% of the 2019 level, only connections between mainland France and the overseas departments having returned to their level. before the pandemic.
The so-called radial connections, between Paris and provincial airports, are those which have collapsed the most with only 71.5% of the number of passengers in 2019. Transverse connections – between provincial airports – are doing better, but remain largely in decline. withdrawal from 2019 (81.3%).
On the other hand, international traffic exceeded its 2019 level, driven by trips between France and America, those to other countries of the European Union and especially to Africa, with 24.1% of passengers in more than five years ago. On the other hand, travel to Asia-Pacific remains lower than in 2019 with only 87.4% of the number of passengers five years ago.
The most popular destinations were Spain and Italy with 17.1 million and 14.4 million travelers respectively. This is 12.1% more than in 2019 for Spain and 15.6% for Italy.
-Türkiye, Morocco, Algeria…
Turkey also experienced strong growth with 37.9% more travelers in five years. Connections from France to the Maghreb have also far exceeded pre-pandemic levels with +35% for Morocco, +26.6% for Algeria and +22.6% for Tunisia. Travel to China remains significantly down (64.6% of the 2019 level) as do those to Japan (68.2%).
Airport attendance is also uneven. Some platforms have exceeded their 2019 levels, sometimes significantly as in Beauvais (+64.6%), where mainly low-cost airline flights depart. Paris-Orly, Nice and Marseille are also doing better than five years ago. The airports having the most difficulty finding their passengers are Toulouse (81.5%), Bordeaux (85.7%) and Lyon (88.9%). These are also the only three airports to still have not exceeded 2019 levels by December 2024.
“French air transport has increasingly significant impacts on the environment, in a context of growth in activity on a global scale,” writes the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) on its website, recalling that CO2 emissions from the sector increased by 85% between 1990 and 2019 and that they could further increase by 50% by 2050, which would worsen its impact on global warming. In 2019, in France, the aviation sector directly emitted 24.2 million tonnes of CO2, or 5.3% of French emissions.
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