Nice Côte d'Azur Celebrates Another Record Summer

Nice Côte d'Azur Airport, the busiest air gateway in France outside of the capital Paris, has used last year’s record traffic performance as a platform for even more growth during 2012. In 2011 the airport handled 10.4 million passengers, a figure that is likely to be surpassed this year as the airport continues to perform beyond expectations despite the tough economic climate.

The Spring-Summer 2011 programme has been in every respect a remarkable one for Nice Côte d’Azur airport with a network of more than 100 scheduled destinations served by 59 operators. Over 49,000 passengers passed through the Niçois transport hub on Sunday 15th July a rate that beats last year's previous record breaking day total by 12 per cent. The airport also celebrated in mid-July the first time ever that more than 300,000 travellers had landed at the facility in a single week. According to the airport, International travel is up by 9.5 per cent, with the main emerging markets being Barcelona, Doha, Tunis, St Petersburg and Djerba.

Nice Côte d’Azur Airport is in surprisingly good health in these economically difficult times. This, however, owes nothing to chance. On the contrary, it's built upon solid foundations: an attractive destination, modern infrastructure, highly efficient teams of employees. A cocktail that guarantees optimum operating conditions for air travel companies.

This isn't a new phenomenon. For almost two hundred years the entire world has been meeting on the French Riviera. But although this destination of dreams, washed by the Mediterranean and caressed by constant sunshine, has long been the preserve of crowned heads and stars, it has opened up to new groups of visitors over the last two decades. Currently, over ten million tourists visit the region every year. And contrary to the generally accepted perception, the majority of these come to visit "out of season". The sea, the blue sky and the beaches are no longer the only assets that the Riviera possesses. Many other centres of interest have been developed.

With 150 different sites and monuments, noted establishments like the Fondation Maeght and the Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Cocteau or Bonnard museums, and with events as popular as the Cannes Festival or the Nice or Menton Carnivals, the Côte d’Azur is today a globally recognised region of culture. This is reflected by the fact that over a million visitors name cultural motivation as their prime reason for visiting the Côte d’Azur.

Air transport is of one of the biggest beneficiaries of tourism and this economic dynamism. Around 25 per cent of Côte d’Azur tourists actually choose to travel by air, and large numbers of local residents, whether travelling for personal or business reasons, also prefer to travel by plane.

Routes such as Nice - Paris or Nice - London are therefore amongst the most heavily used in Europe. The region is one of the major gaps in the high speed train network, and as a result Nice is still more than two hours from Marseille by train and more than five hours from Paris, whilst the flight to the Capital takes barely an hour! Flying is especially favoured by tourists since it drops them off at the entrance to the city. Fully integrated within the greater Nice conurbation, the airport is five minutes from Place Massena, at the heart of Nice. The steps of the Palais des Festivals at Cannes and the ramparts of the Prince's Palace at Monaco are also less than half an hour away by road.

This year Nice Côte d’Azur became the first airport in France to be awarded the ‘Famille Plus’ label by The French Tourism Ministry. This concept was created in 2006 to rank the suitability of locations and sights for families. The criteria includes: is the location welcoming for families, is there sufficient information of families and activities for them to complete in a safe and cost-effective environment.

To achieve the award Nice Côte d’Azur looked at the entire passenger experience from the family perspective and has addressed the potential issues they could face passing through the airport, now offering specific parking spaces for families; introducing some dedicated child-friendly toilets; adding new play areas in the departure lounge; encouraging airport restaurants to propose more attractive children's menus; creating funny information signs and even establishing an inspection point especially dedicated to families.

This is just one of a number of new initiatives introduced this year. New touchscreen information terminals have now been installed in the terminals offering passengers information on flights and service at Nice Côte d’Azur and an airport map to aid the journey through the terminal. A planned upgrade will enable passengers to scan their ticket or boarding pass to display all the information about the flight and the very precise path they can follow to access their boarding gate. Meanwhile, a new online (web and mobile) booking system for the car parks enables passengers to view information on the capacity of different car park in real time, find out the costs and book a parking space.

All this, of course, explains the success of the Nice platform with companies from all over the world, both low-cost and legacy. The success of the low-cost sector meant the airport became one of the largest regional facilities last year handling more than 3.4 million low-cost passengers on 17 different airlines. But, the greatest success experienced by France's second airport isn't so much that it has attracted carriers, but that it has then been able to keep them. Air France, Emirates Airline, Delta Air Lines or Lufthansa flights have served the airport for many years. In fact, Nice is currently the only French regional airport to have daily flights to Dubai and New York. The airport is also one of easyJet's historical destinations, and far from fading over time, the Côte d’Azur's appeal for this British low-cost company continues to grow, this year creating a base at the airport just weeks before Air France did the same.

And who knows? There may be other good news in the pipeline in the future, such as the possible arrival of an Asian carrier. This is something the airport management has pushing hard for over the past few years and they are hopeful of achieving in the not to distant future. They even have resources ready for such a service with the inauguration of the Passerelle 54 boarding bridge. This new station allows contact boarding with the double deck of the A380, the giant of the airways. Apart from Paris, no other airport in France can currently offer equivalent infrastructure, an investment which speaks volumes for Nice's ambitions.

In the tables below we highlight the top ten destinations and ten largest operators from Nice Côte d’Azur Airport by seat capacity this month and compare it with the same month last year.

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