La Galerie Parisienne: A centrepiece of the Paris-Charles de Gaulle hub

La Galerie Parisienne is the new boarding satellite of terminal 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. It has handled nearly 2.4 million passengers since it was unveiled by the French Republic President, Nicolas Sarkozy, in June 2007. This satellite, in line with Aéroports de Paris strategy, allows the growth of handling capacity and reinforces the performance of the first European hub. It is also a showcase of the service policy of Aéroports de Paris. La Galerie Parisienne brings together technological innovations with a string of record figures: its length of 750 metres, 3 hectares of glass façade and 225,000 square metres of built up area (more than 40 soccer fields). Its steel structure weighs more than 13,000 tonnes, nearly twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

The opening of La Galerie Parisienne is in line with the Aéroports de Paris Group strategy. In 2006, Aéroports de Paris launched a large investment program of 2.7 million euros for its Paris airports. This program aims, in particular, at increasing the handling capacity of Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport by 19.4 million passengers by 2010. La Galerie Parisienne contributes to this objective of Aéroports de Paris Group, to take advantage of the expected traffic growth, by developing its airport capacity. This new satellite has become one of the centrepieces of Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. With its total capacity of 19 to 26 pier-served aircraft stands, its 22 boarding gates and its 5,000 seats, it can handle 8.5 million passengers per year.

Currently, passengers boarding at La Galerie Parisienne go to the check-in counters in terminal 2E. After they have checked in they take an automatic metro, which takes them through the 650 metres between terminal 2E and La Galerie Parisienne in just 45 seconds.

An exceptional building to reinforce the Paris-Charles de Gaulle hub and to accommodate jumbo aircraft

La Galerie Parisienne represents the heart of the Air France-KLM and SkyTeam alliance hub. It will be dedicated, in the first instance, to long-haul flights (United States, Canada, Middle East and Asia). La Galerie Parisienne was designed to handle short connections and to accommodate jumbo aircraft. With Terminal 2F, Terminal 2E and La Galerie Parisienne, Paris-Charles de Gaulle is the most powerful hub in Europe, with 21,000 connections each week in less than two hours. The Paris-Charles de Gaulle hub accommodates, on average, 1,000 flights and handles 100,000 passengers per day, including 23,000 connecting passengers.

La Galerie Parisienne is the first building in France specifically designed to receive jumbo aircraft such as the A380. La Galerie Parisienne can accommodate up to six A380s simultaneously, with triple boarding bridges. Its boarding lounges have been sized to adapt to the carrying capacity of these jumbo aircraft.

A true showcase of Paris luxury and the Group service policy

The name “La Galerie Parisienne” is reminiscent of Paris’ indoor galleries (Vivienne, Palais Royal and Colbert). The idea was to create an area similar to big department stores.

La Galerie Parisienne offers the biggest airport retail area in France, with 3,200m2 of shops and 1,400m2 of bars, cafés and restaurants. Designed as an international shopping mall, it is comprised of 21 bright and spacious shops, lining the passenger’s route all the way to the boarding gates.

Aéroports de Paris is welcoming new brands such as Armani for fashion, Hédiard for gastronomy, as well as “Le Mag” for home interior fashion. In parallel, new concept stores have joined the traditional names. This new retail area gives passengers the opportunity to experience new trends at the airport and offers a showcase of Paris luxury, which meets the expectations of international passengers.

La Galerie Parisienne offers numerous other services. Seven work spaces are equipped with electrical sockets to plug in computers and passengers also have access to Wi-Fi hotspots, to surf on the Internet or to play on the network.

Aéroports de Paris has also fitted out two play areas with TV spaces, broadcasting programs from Gulli (the DTTV channel for children). A world first in an airport: Sony, with its latest generation of PS3 video game consoles, is also present in designated areas at La Galerie Parisienne. Passengers will also find electrical sockets and 30 screens broadcasting Aéo programmes (Aéroports de Paris’ television channel).

Client satisfaction at the heart of La Galerie Parisienne design

La Galerie Parisienne was designed from the very start to meet passengers’ expectations. Aéroports de Paris conducted many surveys among passengers, which highlighted their expectations in terms of layout, atmosphere and the user-friendliness of boarding areas. Thanks to this information, the architects of Aéroports de Paris took into account the 10 priority customer expectations. As a result, the building is modern, innovative, simple, fluid, bright and colorful, with a breathtaking view over the runways and the planes. To enhance passenger comfort, five thousand seats are available, as well as rest areas equipped with full lie-down chairs. Dozens of information personnel are available to assist and guide passengers. They can provide information instantly about schedules, check-in areas, traffic conditions, location of shops, printouts of an itinerary in the boarding lounge, etc.

We also have automated control of the temperature, lighting and even air renewal. All of the most innovative technologies have been called upon, to provide optimum comfort for passengers.

La Galerie Parisienne is in line with the sustainable development of Aéroports de Paris

The short term objective of Aéroports de Paris is to save 20% of energy per passenger, in existing facilities, through a significant programme of measurement and control of consumption. The boarding area is contributing to this target, its thermal performances being superior to the requirements of the French standard RT 2000, applicable to new buildings.

Several architectural and technical aspects contribute to the energy efficiency of the new boarding area:

• The materials for the façades and roof have good insulation properties.
  The windows for the façades are thermally treated. The most exposed façades have protective awnings made from sheets of triple-laminated convex glass.
• The internal climate is adapted to actual needs and is automatically regulated.
  “Intelligent” climate control, allows the temperatures in different parts of the boarding area to be adjusted according to requirement and depending on the outside temperature. Recycling of a proportion of the ambient air reduces the amount of air that needs to be heated or cooled, according to the season.
• Air renewal is optimised through sensors that continuously measure the CO2 levels and a more regular distribution of air treatment plants.

CO2 emissions limited

The boarding area benefits from having clean energy production and climate control equipment.
The electric metro transports travellers without pollution emissions, and having pier-served aircraft stands avoids the use of shuttle buses for boarding and disembarking. All of the aircraft stands are equipped with 400Hz electrical sockets, leading to a reduction in the use of generator sets or auxiliary engines. Services on the runway predominantly make use of vehicles running on electricity or natural gas.

One of the biggest building sites in France

The plan for the boarding area arose from the need to boost the capacity of the Paris-Charles de Gaulle hub. The initial studies on the building and all of its specifications date from 1997, after which followed the phase of setting up contracts between 2000 and 2005. Works began in summer 2004 and therefore will have lasted about 36 months.

In total, around 600 businesses took part in the building work. This represents 12,000 people, supervised by the Aéroports de Paris project structure of 200 people. Throughout the winter peak period of 2006-2007, more than 1,500 personnel were simultaneously present on site. These characteristics have made it one of the biggest building sites in France.

Key dates for the project

• Summer 2004 Beginning of the initial works
• July 2005 Laying of the first metal girder
• December 2005 Start of roof installation
• January 2006 Start of glass façades installation
• November 2006 Electricity first switched on
• January 2007 Arrival of the first triple boarding bridge
• February 2007 Laying of the first carpeting
• April 2007 Handover of the Eastern aeronautical areas
• 2 June 2007 First docking of the Airbus A380
• 26 and 27 June 2007 Opening ceremony and first commercial flight

About Aéroports de Paris

Aéroports de Paris builds, develops and manages airports including Paris-Orly, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Le Bourget. Aéroports de Paris is Europe’s second-largest airport services group in terms of airport revenues and the European leader for cargo and mail. Aéroports de Paris accommodates nearly 460 airlines, including the main companies in the air transport industry.

With an exceptional geographic location and a major trading area, the Group is pursuing its strategy of modernising its terminal facilities and upgrading the quality of services, and also intends to develop its retail and real estate business. In 2007, Aéroports de Paris Group had revenues of ?2,292.4 million and handled 86.4 million passengers.

About the author

Pierre Graff has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aéroports de Paris since 2003.
Born in Paris on 11 November 1947, Pierre GRAFF is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and a General Engineer of the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées.

After occupying several engineering posts within Regional Infrastructure Directorates (Ardennes, Calvados, Nord, Loire Atlantique), Pierre GRAFF became Technical Advisor for highway policy to the Private Office of the Minister for Infrastructure, Housing, Territorial Development and Transport in 1986. He was Inter-departmental Delegate for road safety from 1987 to 1990.

Until 1993 he was Regional Infrastructure Director for the Essonne Département and then Deputy Principal Private Secretary to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
From 1995 to 2002, Pierre GRAFF was Director General of the French Civil Aviation Authority. He was then appointed Principal Private Secretary to Gilles de ROBIEN, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure, Housing, Tourism and the Sea, from June 2002 to September 2003.