Bordeaux’s billi Opens for Business

On June 10, Bordeaux became the third French airport to open a dedicated low-cost terminal offering, following Marseille Provence's mp2 and Lyon Saint Exupéry's Terminal 3.

Last year, Bordeaux Airport handled 3.3 million passengers through its two terminals. Now, the opening of billi or 'Bordeaux Illico', which translates as 'Bordeaux straight away', means more simplicity and efficiency for airlines. Construction cost just €5.5 million and low-fare airlines must meet 25-minute turnaround times. In return, the passenger service charge is around 30% less than at its other terminals.

Responding to Rail Competition

Despite Bordeaux Airport's low-cost traffic growing from 119,000 passengers to more than 483,000 passengers between 2003 and 2009, the planned TGV Sud-Ouest high-speed railway line between Paris and Bordeaux will inevitably lead to passenger leakage. Once it's operating in 2017, the high speed rail line will reduce travel time by rail between Paris and Bordeaux by one hour - to two hours and five minutes. Bordeaux Airports' development director, Jean-Luc Poiroux warns: "We are forecasting a loss of 850,000 passengers in the first year, mainly on the Paris trunk route and other routes which are linked to the TGV."

He explains that this is why the airport's dedicated low-cost terminal is so important. "The idea behind billi is to try and compensate in advance for this loss of traffic. We've therefore chosen a more dynamic strategy focusing on low-cost traffic and for the next five to 10 years, we can bring in more capacity."

This year, Bordeaux is expecting to turn over 6% more traffic, equating to over 3.5 million passengers.

Low-cost business makes up 15% of Bordeaux's total traffic and the airport expects to increase this share to 20% by the end of this year. "We are aiming for a 35% share [of low-cost traffic] by 2015," he explains.

Bordeaux's Current Network

The following table offers a summary of Bordeaux's existing network:

Source: FlightBase 14-20 June 2010

easyJet, Ryanair and Jet4U have transferred to billi. However, bmibaby, Cimber Sterling and Norwegian Air Shuttle, are among the budget operators that will remain operating from Bordeaux's full-service terminals because the airport currently doesn't have an IT system in place to support its carriers with connecting flights.

"In the coming months we will see if any other low-cost carriers switch over to the new terminal," says Poiroux.

So what route launches are coming soon? Bordeaux will open seasonal flights to Punta Cana in December. Plus, on February 10, 2011, Air Austral will begin serving Bordeaux (and Nantes) twice a week from Réunion with B777-200 aircraft.

So where are the growth opportunities for Bordeaux?

"We have a lot of routes to the UK, but we still feel that the potential exists for new flights out of the UK to Bordeaux," says Poiroux. Italy remains another opportunity, he believes, with Ryanair having started flights from Bordeaux to Bologna on March 31 and easyJet having opened its Milan Malpensa service on April 30.

Perhaps surprisingly, there are no direct services from Bordeaux to to Germany. "We know that there are hundreds of thousands of Germans driving to Bordeaux during the summer periods and this is another target for us."

Plus, Bordeaux has a large number of people from Spain and Portugal who live in the region. "We see big potential to capture this traffic," says Poiroux.

"We are also desperate to gain new routes to points such as Prague, Warsaw and Moscow and even to the Baltic states," he concludes.