November 2024 barometer of waiting times at Paris Airports' border controls

The Border Police Directorate and Groupe ADP have partnered to assess the waiting times passengers experience at various border control points in Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports.

General trend observed in November 2024 [1]:

For the record, the maximum waiting times at the Border Police in airports, targeted by the French Prime Minister during the inter-ministerial council on tourism on July 26, 2017, are 30 minutes for European nationals and 45 minutes for non-Europeans.

- At Paris-Charles de Gaulle: out of nearly 2.9 million passengers on international flights [2], 85.2% waited less than 10 minutes, 12.6% waited between 10 and 30 minutes, 1.3% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 0.9% waited more than 45 minutes.

- At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 800 000 passengers on international flights, 90.7% waited less than 10 minutes, 8.7% waited between 10 and 30 minutes, and 0.5% waited between 30 and 45 minutes.

Events resulting in waiting times of over 30 minutes:

At Paris-Charles de Gaulle /
Week 45: 53 events impacting around 13 500 passengers, with an average waiting time of 62 minutes.
Week 46: 46 events impacting around 15 000 passengers, with an average waiting time of 53 minutes.
Week 47: 29 events impacting around 7 380 passengers, with an average waiting time of 46 minutes
Week 48: 34 events impacting around 12 500 passengers, with an average waiting time of 53 minutes.

At Paris-Orly /
Week 45: 9 events impacting around 990 passengers, with an average waiting time of 38 minutes.
Week 46: 8 events impacting around 1 000 passengers, with an average waiting time of 42 minutes.
Week 47: 6 events impacting around 1 250 passengers, with an average waiting time of34 minutes.
Week 48: 3 events impacting around 630 passengers, with an average waiting time of 42 minutes.

Focus on some events:

- On Thursday, November 7, 2024, between 6.45 and 9.30 am, border guards at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2E were unable to absorb the flow of passengers, due to a large number of police missions other than passport control, reducing the availability of staff at the guard posts. Paris Airport staff broadcast announcements explaining the slowdown, and reception staff were mobilized to assist passengers who needed it (distribution of water bottles, provision of seats for certain passengers, etc.). Around 2,000 passengers waited an average of 1 hour.

- On Sunday November 24, 2024, between 6:20 and 10:40 am, the border police officers present at the start of operations at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2E were unable to absorb t he flow of arrivals, disrupted by last-minute flight shifts. Reinforcements were deployed from 6:30 onwards, to stabilize waiting times, but without reducing them. Waiting times were also relatively contained thanks to the new PARAFE airlock switching system, which enables airlocks to be configured for passengers from Schengen countries or other countries, according to the nationalities of the passengers actually present in the queues. Around 2,500 passengers waited an average of 1 hour.

- On Friday, November 29, 2024, between 12:25 and 1:40 pm, the number of police officers mobilized at Terminal 1 at Paris-Charles de Gaulle was unable to absorb the flow of passengers during this peak in traffic, despite the presence of reinforcements. Three flights were prioritized by Paris Airport teams to limit departure delays. Some 520 passengers waited until 1 am.

Details of monthly results for October 2024 regarding Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly:

Methodology: real time data from counting sensors

Since 2019, Groupe ADP has deployed tools to monitor and control passenger flows and waiting times. In particular, sensors allowing the number of passengers to be counted in real time in a queue have been deployed to equip the border crossing and safety control areas of Paris Airports.
This is a real-time measurement tool that is automatically updated every five seconds. It counts the number of passengers in a queue by measuring how long the last person to leave the queue has been waiting. Between 80 and 200 sensors are needed to cover an area, depending on its size.
The data is fed into an operational performance monitoring tool that analyses what has happened in an operational day. It is the data extracted from these sensors that is used to set up this barometer.

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[1] In October: At Paris-Charles de Gaulle, out of nearly 4.1 million passengers on international flights2 , 86% waited less than 10 minutes, 11.8% waited between 10 and 30 minutes, 1.5% between 30 and 45 minutes, and 0.7% waited more than 45 minutes. At Paris-Orly: out of nearly 1.2 million passengers on international flights, 93.9% waited less than 10 minutes, 5.9% waited between 10 and 30 minutes, and 0.2% waited between 30 and 45 minutes.
[2] .Passengers taken into account are those who passed through a border at departures, during transfers, or at arrivals at Paris-Charles de Gaulle or Paris-Orly (thus not applicable to passengers on domestic or Schengen flights).