Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport Information


Airport type	Public
Owner/Operator	Aéroports de Paris
Serves	Paris
Location	25 km (16 mi) NE of Paris
Hub	Air France Delta Air Lines easyJet FedEx Express
Passengers	57,884,954
Movements	525,314

Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport is one of the world's principal aviation centres, as well as France's main airport. It is named after Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970), leader of the Free French Forces and founder of the French Fifth Republic. It is located within portions of several communes, 25 km (16 mi) to the north-east of Paris. The airport serves as the principal hub for Air France.

In 2009, the airport handled 57,884,954 passengers and 525,314 aircraft movements, making it the world's sixth busiest airport in terms of passengers and Europes second busiest (world's seventh busiest) airport in terms of aircraft movements. In terms of cargo traffic, the airport is the tenth busiest in the world, having handled 1,818,503 metric tonnes of cargo.

Ground transport

Rail

CDG is connected to Paris, as well as the rest of France and Europe by both the RER, Paris' suburban rail network, and the TGV high-speed national rail network.

RER

CDG airport is connected to Paris by the RER B suburban route. Normally there are two types of services: 4 times per hour to Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse calling at all stations to Cité Universitaire, then Bourg-la-Reine, La Croix de Berny, Antony, Massy – Palaiseau and then all stations to Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse and 4 times per hour to Massy – Palaiseau (on the Saint-Rémy line), first stop Gare du Nord and then all stations to Massy – Palaiseau. The fast services take about 30 minutes to the Gare du Nord, the stopping services about 35. There are two RER B stations inside the airport:

one, called Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 1, is located inside Roissypôle (an area with hotels and company offices) next to Terminal 3 and is the preferred way to access Terminals 1 and 3; the other, called Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 2 – TGV, is located beside the TGV station under Terminal 2.

RER B both serves CDG airport (with a travelling clientele) as well as northern suburbs of Paris. The line, operated by SNCF, suffers from slowness and saturation. For these reasons, French authorities have started two projects: one, CDG Express (opening between 2012 and 2015), will link CDG to Paris Gare de l'Est with trains specifically designed for air travellers; the other, RER B Nord Plus, will modernise and streamline the northern branches of RER B.

TGV

Terminal 2 includes a TGV station on the LGV Interconnexion Est high-speed line. SNCF operates direct TGV services to several French stations from CDG, including Le Havre, Angers, Avignon, Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, Le Mans, Lille, Arras, Lyon, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nantes, Nîmes, Poitiers, Angoulême, Rennes, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Tours and Valence.

Bus

Roissybus, operated by RATP, departs from terminals 1 and 2 and goes non-stop to Paris, behind the Palais Garnier.

There is a bus and coach station in Roissypôle, next to the RER B station. Buses departing from this station include RATP lines 350 and 351 going to Paris and the bus going to the Parc Astérix.

Air France operates "Les Cars Air France" to several destinations: Place de l'Etoile, Porte Maillot, Gare Montparnasse, Gare de Lyon, or Paris-Orly.

Alternative airports

The two other airports serving Paris are Orly Airport (the most important after CDG) and Le Bourget Airport (for general aviation and private jets). Some low-cost airlines also advertise Beauvais-Tillé Airport as being serving Paris, using the name Paris-Beauvais to designate it.