The exceptional geographical location of the Nice Côte d'Azur airport means it is regularly subject to extreme wind shear. Now it benefits from one of the most powerful lidars in Europe, acquired by Météo France from Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. This new system complements our existing observation system and improves aircraft and passenger safety.
Air travel is poised to take off again this summer, with a flight schedule including 11 new routes and 2 new destinations, Menorca and Southampton, and - provided borders are open again - the return of the first long-haul flights to New York and Dubai. This upsurge underscores the attractiveness and vitality of the French Riviera, and confirms the health safety strategy put in place by the airport to create the reassuring conditions which airlines and their passengers expect.
With an unprecedented fall in passenger traffic, including a 50.9% reduction in domestic flights and 77.7% in international flights, in 2020 Aéroports de la Côte d’Azur recorded a very significant 55% decrease in its turnover, equivalent to 132 million euros. These unprecedented circumstances did not prevent ACA from ensuring continuous airport services at the highest possible level to serve its region and, despite everything, continuing to make massive investments for safety and the environment.
Since March 2020, Nice Côte d’Azur Airport has been highly committed to the fight against the transmission of COVID-19, and has been a pioneer of various measures, which have since been recognised and even required by healthcare authorities. The airport has made a commitment to the wider profession by means of the EASA Charter, in addition to recently obtaining ACI Health Accreditation, which validates their efforts and the measures implemented across the airport.
Since January 4th, and for a planned duration of one month, Nice Côte d’Azur Airport has begun renovation work on its northern runway, which is usually used for landings. This work, designed to reduce environmental impacts as much as possible, is part of a long-term operational maintenance programme for infrastructure.
Despite a net drop in passenger traffic of 68.4%, Nice Côte d’Azur Airport comes out fighting from this unprecedented year. Its modernisation works, the implementation of new activity management systems, the efficient structuring of a health protection policy deemed exemplary, and the upholding of its environmental commitments help make it, in line with its objectives, an airport of the future: safer, more secure and more efficient.
In accordance with commitments made in January 2020, during the presentation of its Cap 2030 program, Aéroports de la Côte d’Azur has announced the establishment of a tripartite agreement, the first of its kind in France, with local towns and the National Forestry Office, to plant trees at the heart of the Côte d'Azur region and thus benefit from carbon sinks.
Concentrating all the functions related to airport operations – management of passenger flows, baggage, aircraft on stands – and technical equipment maintenance, this ultramodern superstructure, promoted by Eurocontrol, puts Nice Airport among the most advanced airports in Europe with regard to airport operations management through overall performance, making it additionally possible to help air traffic flow more smoothly. Ultimately, the airport’s APOC (Airport Operations Center) will also integrate all the functions linked to airport access management, safety and security.
In response to the announcement of the French Minister for Transport on 15 October and at the request of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for the implementation of health corridors, Nice Côte d’Azur Airport has organised and established a room dedicated to antigen tests in its Terminal 2. This unprecedented arrangement, made possible through the mobilisation of all authorities and partner airlines, represents a full-scale test that aims to be deployed on a wider scale and in the long term in other airports.