France scraps massive extension of Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport

France has dropped its plans for a major extension of Paris’s Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport after the project was deemed “obsolete” and incompatible with the fight against climate change. 

A man walks inside a terminal at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in Roissy. REUTERS - GONZALO FUENTES

The construction of a fourth terminal, to have been completed by 2037, would have cost some 7-9 billion euros, and increased the airport’s capacity by 40 million passengers per year.

But Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili on Thursday told the Le Monde daily the colossal venture was no longer viable – especially in light of the pandemic.

La construction du terminal #T4 à l’aéroport de Roissy est un projet obsolète, incompatible avec la loi #ClimatResilience.

Nous demandons à ADP d’abandonner ce projet.
https://t.co/PciIs5l2bW

— Barbara Pompili (@barbarapompili) February 11, 2021

Instead, she said, the government had asked state-owned airport operator ADP to come up with new plans for Roissy Charles de Gaulle that were more in keeping with environmental protection.

"We will still need the planes, but the aim is to make more rational use of air transport and to reduce the sector's greenhouse gas emissions," Pompili said.

Fresh vision

According to the government, future improvements to Charles de Gaulle must now promote access to the airport by rail, include geothermal heating, and allow for the accommodation of hydrogen-powered or electric planes.

While air traffic has been decimated by the Covid crisis, plummeting by an historic 66 percent in 2020, the T4 project would have allowed Charles de Gaulle airport to absorb an extra 450 flights every day.

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Environmental groups and some politicians have long called for a review of the extension, while France’s Environmental Authority in July said it was unclear how ramping up capacity at Charles de Gaulle would fit in with the country’s international climate targets.

The project’s scrapping comes a day after the government presented a climate bill based on the proposals of the Citizens' Climate Convention, the text of which was quickly criticised for its "lack of muscle" by environmental groups.