The Paris-Vatry airport could be a winner of the Euro Cup 2016

The 2016 Euro football cup that will take place in France from June 10 to July 10, 2016, is a much anticipated event.

Amateurs of football rejoice over the thought of attending matchs of the continent’s best players, for an entire month, while economic players wish to take advantage of this event to develop their businesses.

Amongst them, the Paris-Vatry airport could specifically benefit from this. Its management board was recently contacted by the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) and Euro 2016 SAS, organizers of the event.

“Their logisticians told us of their interest for the Paris-Vatry platform in order to reroute part of the flights expected to land in Orly and Roissy during the Euro 2016,” confirms Stéphae Lafay, Executive Director of the airport.

Their request specifically involves the two matchs of the final phase, programmed at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. The quarter finale of July 3rd and the Euro Cup finale scheduled on July 10, 2016. The teams who will play these games are still unknown, naturally.

Consequently, not all of the seats to attend the games have been put on sale, yet. One third of the tickets, accounting for 24,000 seats, will be sold only fifteen days before the meets. This will enable fans of the qualifying teams to attend the games and show their support.

“This accounts for one hundred chartered flights for each of these two games, estimates Stéphane Lafay. And that, even for large airports like Orly or Roissy is difficult to manage.”

Which is why the organizers are counting on the back-up of Paris-Vatry.

Another important criteria: safety. The services of the Ile-de-France Prefecture want to make sure that a portion of the fans leaves Paris quickly by bus right after the games to avoid conflicts and outbursts.

The Paris-Vatry airport is located around 180km from Saint-Denis. It takes around 2 hours to 2 and a half hours by road.

The management board of the airport believes being able to manage the arrival and departure of around fifteen simultaneous chartered flights.

“This is a major challenge for us. But also an important opportunity to show that Paris-Vatry has the capacity of being the third largest airport of Paris, explains the site’s Executive Director.

Furthermore, it is an opportunity to prove our know-how. We handle lots of charters and we are used to handling night flights since we are located in an urbanized zone.”

The airport's teams are currently building a case to respond to the request of the UEFA. It should be completed by late March or early April 2016.

Simultaneously, they are creating and developing systems to speed up boarding and disembarkation. “We must also reorganize our terminals to handle the influx since we will receive large volumes of passengers,” specifies Stéphane Lafay.

Equally, the materialization of this project remains very uncertain. Indeed, everything will depend on the teams that qualify for the quarter finale and the finale of the Euro Cup 2016.

If the games are France versus Belgium, for instance, the number of fans to receive in the Parisian airports will clearly be smaller than a Turkey-Romania or Sweden-Russia match.


L'aéroport de Paris-Vatry pourrait être l'un des gagnants de l'Euro 2016