Another very difficult morning at the Paris Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport this Monday. According to the testimony of many passengers on Twitter, you have to be patient to pass the police controls of Terminal 1, both on departure and arrival.
“More than an hour queuing to proceed with police procedures at the Charles de Gaulle airport in #Paris. #AeroportsdeParis makes excuses but people are suffering, especially the elderly or those with delicate health,” complains Ibrahima Lissa Faye, a journalist Support video.
“Two policemen to watch over the formalities of the hundreds of passengers”
And emphasize that “there are only two police officers to ensure the formalities of the hundreds of passengers.”
“Some people in #Terminal 1 of #CDG”, ironically Jean Edern Pierrot, who also published a video of a very long queue this Monday.
If passengers welcome the free distribution of bottles of water, many are those who underline the recurrence of this problem in Paris despite ADP’s promises.
On the “Paris Aéroports” Twitter account dedicated to passenger information and which reports to ADP, we acknowledge these new difficulties with dissatisfied travelers, always for the same reason: lack of staff at checkpoints.
“This Monday is a big day, with more than 200,000 passengers expected at Paris-Charles de Gaulle. At Terminal 1, the wait exceeded 60 minutes this morning at departure due to heavy footfall and workforce strain The border police in the other sectors of Paris-CDG were well supplied and did not experience long waiting times”, explains a spokesperson interviewed by BFM Business.
ADP proposes “a service system: distribution of bottles of water, sound announcements to report long waiting times and, above all, prioritization of passengers whose flights are about to leave in the path of our agents. Welcome to the queue.”
500 hires by the end of 2024
“The number of police officers does not depend on the airport administrator, but on the Border Police Department. Our teams are mobilized to organize the flows as best as possible,” adds Paris Aéroport on Twitter.
Indeed, if, as in many European airports, Roissy and Orly in Paris have suffered and are suffering from a shortage of personnel, in particular security, in the capital another problem amplifies waiting times: that of the lack of PAF police (police of borders). at checkpoints (not to mention technical breakdowns).
At the end of last year, an estimated 300 police officers were missing at the two Paris airports. Problem, lack of manpower causes cascading consequences for departing and disembarking passengers (especially for connections).
However, ADP (Aéroports de Paris) believes that the situation is improving although there is still work to be done. The company also puts pressure on the Ministry of the Interior, the only one empowered to increase the number of police officers at airports.
According to our information, 150 agents were deployed before Christmas 2022, but perhaps on an ad hoc basis to guarantee flows during the year-end holidays. With the challenges ahead (summer break, Rugby World Cup, Olympics next year), recruitment will pick up speed, we promise.
the PAF plans to recruit 255 agents additional screening contractors for Paris airports before June and 500 before the end of 2024. For the whole country, the PAF wants to hire 1,200 people before the summer of 2024, to avoid nightmare situations during the summer holidays. And an additional 17 Parafe (automated border crossing) airlocks will be deployed.
The director of the PAF, Fabrice Gardon, insisted on the challenge of guaranteeing calm passage and guaranteeing security: “it is the entire image of the country that is at stake, even more so than the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games in Paris”.
Less than 1% of passengers would wait more than 40 minutes
According to the first ADP barometers presented for the months of January and February, between 83% and 90% of passengers waited less than 10 minutes during border control at Charles de Gaulle. In Orly, this rate reached 87% in January and 85% in February.
Less than 1% of the 6.5 million passengers who passed through these two airports in January and February were forced to wait more than 40 minutes, again according to the barometer.
Source: BFM TV
