The French state-owned national airline, Air France, is France’s major international carrier, flying to over 30 French, 65 European and 120 non-European destinations in over 70 countries. Air France and its various subsidiaries (known collectively as Groupe Air France) has a fleet of over 200 aircraft and carries some 16m passengers annually. It provides a high standard of service and, as you would expect, excellent in-flight cuisine.
Air France shares its monopoly on many international routes with just one foreign carrier and is thus able to charge high fares. The lack of competition means that international flights to and from most French airports, and French domestic flights, are among the world’s most expensive. However, some opposition is starting to appear and high fares on some transatlantic flights have been reduced in recent years by travel agents such as Nouvelles Frontières. There are regular scheduled flights to Paris CDG from many North American cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and Washington, to Lyon from Montreal and to Nice from Montreal, New York and Toronto. There are also transatlantic charter flights to other French airports (e.g. to Toulouse from Montreal and Toronto).
In recent years, British and Irish visitors have been particularly well served by cheap flights (as well as less inexpensive services) from a number of airports – especially London Stansted – to many regional French destinations. Note, however, that the low-cost airlines are notoriously fickle and frequently change services according to ‘demand’ (i.e. profitability), so you should check current services with the airline and the airport (who may well provide you with different information!). Take into account also any seasonal charter flights (e.g. to Nice in the summer and Lyon in the winter).
Airports
The main French airports handling intercontinental flights are Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, Paris Orly, Lyon-Saint-Exupéry (formerly Satolas), Nice-Côte-d’Azur and Marseille-Provence. (A controversial third ‘Paris’ airport – actually over 120km/75mi from the city in the Somme! – is planned but wouldn’t open before 2015 even if the many objections are overcome.) Charles de Gaulle (CDG) is the country’s busiest airport, followed by Nice, which offers direct scheduled flights to around 80 cities worldwide, and Marseille, which serves around 70 international destinations.
Other French airports served by other international as well as domestic flights include Brive-La-Gaillarde, Caen, Cherbourg, Dijon, Le Havre, Lille, Mulhouse/Basel, Nancy/Metz, Quimper, Rennes and Rouen. There are also flights to Ajaccio, Bastia, Calvi and Figari in Corsica. Depending on your destination, it’s sometimes cheaper or quicker to fly to an international airport outside France, such as Luxembourg or Baden Baden in Germany for north-eastern France and Geneva in Switzerland for eastern France.
Long and short-term parking is available at major airports, including reserved parking for the disabled, and car hire is also available at Paris and principal provincial airports.
The Aéroports de Paris website (http://www.aeroportsdeparis.fr ) has information on both CDG and Orly with maps and even pre-ordering from the airport duty-free shops! Details of all French airports and their current services can be found on http://www.aeroport.fr . A useful website for finding cheap flights is http://www.whichbudget.com .
This article is an extract from Buying a home in France. Click here to get a copy now.