The Charles De Gaulle Paris Airport Expansion Project Is Canceled, Here's The Reason

Bandara Charles de Gaulle. (Wikimedia Commons / Benoît Prieur)

JAKARTA - French authorities canceled the expansion project of Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, which was previously planned by building a fourth terminal. Prestigious project with large funds.

First announced three years ago, the project, which is estimated to cost US $ 11 billion, was due to start in the next few months. Originally, Terminal 4 was described as an airport within an airport, the equivalent of placing Paris Orly's second airport, inside Charles de Gaulle.

In addition to the target of 40 million additional passengers, the terminal is projected to be able to handle an additional 450 flights every day by the end of the 2030s. However, everything is just a plan with two things in mind.

First, to honor carbon emission targets, the French Government now says any airport development must accommodate future electric and hydrogen-fueled aircraft.

Second, the COVID-19 factor. With air traffic currently only a quarter of pre-crisis levels, giant expansion schemes such as Terminal 4 seem clearly irrelevant.

To that end, French Ecological Transitional Minister Barbara Pompili has asked the operator Aeroports de Paris (ADP), to cancel the project, which she says is obsolete.

"We will always need planes, but we must move towards making more sense of use of air travel, and achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the sector," he said, telling the BBC.

Meanwhile, French Green Party chairman Julien Bayou said the decision was a big win for environmentalists against what he called a ridiculous project.

Charles de Gaulle Airport, which opened in 1974, is the second busiest airport in Europe after London Heathrow, with more than 76 million passengers passing in 2019.