Terminal 2 renovation work
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1- The aim is to increase passenger traffic
See more See lessFALSE: it’s the other way round. The fact is that Nice Côte d’Azur Airport has an optimum capacity of 14 million passengers per year, taking into account all its terminals. And it can even stretch to 17 million, although that entails a significant drop in quality of service. In 2019, passenger traffic exceeded 14 million, with peaks that resulted in long queues and bottlenecks that made for an unpleasant experience.
In parallel, all independent forecasts indicate that passenger traffic is set to rise even further, meaning that infrastructure needs to adapt to accommodate around 30% more passengers. The aim of the terminal 2 renovation work is not therefore to increase traffic, but to safeguard quality of service, given the projected rise in the number of people to be accommodated. It’s the same reasoning as that of the headmistress of a school where class sizes are getting too big and affecting teaching quality: planning ahead, she takes steps to open a couple more classes.
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2- The extension will increase air traffic by 50%, along with all the associated problems!
See more See lessFALSE: the additional impact study carried out by an independent firm modelled air traffic growth.
It found that with or without the extension, aircraft movements will increase due to international growth in the sector. All destinations are affected by this trend, and Nice is no exception.
The impact study indicates that, even without the extension to terminal 2, air traffic will increase by 1% per year, to reach around an additional 14,000 aircraft movements per year by 2034.
On the other hand, the study indicates that the growth could increase by 2.1% per year with the extension, i.e. an additional 14,000 aircraft movements. This discrepancy can be attributed to the extension.
This is therefore not an increase of 50%, since in 2023, there were already at 107,404 aircraft movements per year.
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3- The extension will generate a lot of air pollution.
See more See lessFALSE: thanks to aviation trends, the study shows that despite aircraft movements increasing, greenhouse gas emissions will be 11% lower than in 2024 due to improvements in infrastructure and aircraft design. The study also indicates that the measures taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions and energy use will also help to reduce air pollution.
The study’s model found the concentration of pollutants to be 12 points, including the Moulins nursery and the Flore 2 primary school. The variations in concentrations between the current and future situation once the exension is completed are not significant, and most of the pollutants studied will be even lower than they are at present.
Sulphur dioxide is one of the only pollutants to increase, but this increase will be minimal: from 0.30 to 0.36 µg/cubic metre, an increase of 0.06 µg/cubic metre.
This slight increase should be seen in the context of WHO’s recommended value for sulphur dioxide, which is 20 µg/cubic metre. The sulphur dioxide level will therefore represent only 1.8% of WHO’s recommended threshold.
Therefore, the regulatory limits for all pollutants have been respected.
Where WHO’s recommendations are exceeded, this is due to background pollution from non-airport related activities (industry, road transport, etc.).
In 2034, the study found almost no difference between a situation with the extension of Terminal 2 and a situation without the extension, since it is less than one microgram per cubic metre for nitrogen dioxide and around one hundredth of a microgram per cubic metre for dust.
In conclusion, by 2034, air emissions from the Terminal 2 extension project will not generate any significant health risks.
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4- Noise pollution will increase!
See more See lessTHE STUDY CONCLUDED that, if the extension goes ahead, 71 additional people (compared with a situation without the extension) will be exposed to noise levels above 50dB at night by 2034 (i.e. 15% of the 484 people in the baseline situation). Over the whole day (24 hours - Lden indicator), an additional 559 people will be exposed to noise levels above 55dB with the extension (the baseline 2034 level without the extension will be 9,158 people).
Thanks to its proximity to the sea and the associated flight paths, Nice Airport is one of the airports with the best health indicators in its category. This situation will not change with the extension.
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5- The French Riviera will suffer from overtourism!
See more See lessNOT STRICTLY TRUE: even if passenger volume continues to grow, “overtourism” is an overstatement. First, because 40% of passengers are local residents, who therefore have no impact on the volume of tourists. Next, frequent flyers account for 11% of the total traffic, and most of them travel for professional reasons. Those passengers are an asset in that they provide year-round business for the hotel industry.
Lastly, in keeping with the previous comment, the region’s strategy - which Nice Airport supports - is geared to reducing seasonal variations in air traffic, to keep tourism levels more constant throughout the year. In other words, although there is a rise in volume for the year as a whole, actual growth will mainly take place during the low season, which again benefits tourism infrastructure.
We might add that 70% of tourists travel to the French Riviera by car or train.
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6- Yet more soil artificialisation!
See more See lessFALSE: this renovation work concerns an area that is already artificialised and partially built on. We might add that it doesn’t involve any work on aviation resources (aircraft parking areas, flight line, taxiway, etc.). It only concerns a building that takes up a ground surface area of 9,900 sq. m, an extension of an existing building on development-ready land.
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7- This project has been designed with environmental considerations in mind!
See more See lessTRUE: in addition to the environmental impact, which was calculated by an independent firm, the entire building site is subject to stringent rules to limit pollution. For example, an environment engineer checks that everyone working on the site complies with the environmental instructions.
An ecologist has also been assigned to the project. He monitors it from start to finish to make sure all rules and instructions are applied. One example is the rule that bans all noisy work and vibrating tools during the nesting season of the birds living in the Natura 2000 area of the Var plains. This requirement is strictly applied with zero exceptions.