Nice Côte d’Azur Airport notes the judgement of the Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal on its planned project to adapt Terminal 2

This request for further details is to formalise the procedure to grant planning permission. Nice Côte d’Azur Airport is fully committed to carrying out this additional study which will demonstrate that the adaptations planned for Terminal 2 only concern passenger handling areas, and do not involve any mechanical increase in the number of aircraft movements.

In addition, the airport would like to take this opportunity to explain the real reason for this project, and the issues it aims to address.

As manager of the public airport service within the Nice Côte d'Azur hub, Société des Aéroports de la Côte d'Azur is required to take all necessary steps to ensure that passengers using its terminals are handled safely and in good conditions.

In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, a total of 14.5 million passengers, or 7.25 million travellers transited through Nice airport, which by then had exceeded its theoretical maximum capacity of 14 million passengers.

The current recovery in air travel along with our policy of fair health measures, fully justify adapting our infrastructure to provide excellent passenger handling and safety conditions.

In terms of the projected growth in passenger traffic, the airport would like to take this opportunity to highlight the following objective facts:

• The extension of Terminal 2 will increase the airport's theoretical capacity to 18 million passengers (or 9 million travellers), i.e. 1.75 million more than in 2019,
• The airport's business is not solely focused on handling tourists, since 36% of passengers live in the region and 24% travel frequently, particularly for business,
• Finally, the increase in the number of passengers and aircraft movements is not proportional. Between 2012 and 2019, the number of passengers handled at the terminals rose by 29%, while aircraft movements fell by 0.05% over the same period.

“There is no other mode of transport that needs so little construction to enable travellers to directly connect two places several hundreds or thousands of kilometres apart. Without resorting to land reclamation, our Terminal 2 extension project represents the best construction-connection ratio,” said Franck Goldnadel, Chairman of the Management Board of Aéroports de la Côte d'Azur.

To learn more about the project:
https://corporate.nice.aeroport.fr/news-media/adaptation-of-terminal-2