Air France and Aéroports de Paris have opened satellite S4, the new boarding area at Terminal 2E at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. This new area allows Air France to group its operations to the east of the hub and to offer its passengers shorter and more fluid connecting channels. Fully dedicated to handling long-haul flights and wide-bodied aircraft, the S4 is a strategic location for setting up the largest Air France lounge, which is 3,000 sq m. 
With additional capacity provided by the new satellite at Terminal 2E, it will be possible to reconfigure Terminal 2F to make it exclusively dedicated to European traffic (Schengen area). Air France and SkyTeam operations will mostly be east of the platform, between Terminals 2E, 2F and 2G.
In less than three minutes, passengers are able to reach satellite S4 from Terminal 2E by an automatic train that operates between the various parts of Terminal E: gates K, located at Terminal E’s boarding pier, gates L, accessible from satellite 3 and gates M, the new boarding gates located at satellite S4.
The new satellite 4 will be dedicated to long-haul flights and wide-bodied aircraft and will be able to welcome up to 7.8 million passengers. It will simultaneously have room for 16 long-haul aircraft, including six Airbus A380s and increasing the number of flights handled at gate parking stands directly at the terminal. The new satellite will be used exclusively by Air France and its SkyTeam partners, who represented over 60% of passengers at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport in 2011.
There are more than 6,000 sq m of shops, bars and restaurants, mainly arranged around a large central square. Aéroports de Paris has also included a museum area that will exhibit original works from Paris museums.
Cabin Upgrades
Meanwhile, Alexandre de Juniac, Chairman and Chief Executive of Air France, has presented the airline’s finalised strategic business plan that includes a multi-million euro investment in new cabin facilities, especially in First and Business Class.
To regain its competitiveness, the Air France Group’s short and medium-haul activity will be restructured around three complementary poles: Air France, a French regional hub and Transavia France.
- Air France will continue to develop by feeding its hub at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, its main Business domestic and European routes from Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly, as well as its three regional bases in Marseille, Nice and Toulouse.
- The grouping together of operations by Airlinair, Brit Air and Regional within a new regional hub will give rise to a 15% cost reduction and will offer customers an adapted and more competitive range of services for business and leisure travel within France and to the rest of Europe.
- To capture the growth in the leisure sector, Air France has chosen to develop its subsidiary Transavia France, which will increase from 2013 the frequency of its existing flights and will operate new routes from Paris-Orly, Lille, Lyon and Nantes. No Air France routes or frequencies will be transferred to Transavia France.
Air France intends to regain growth momentum by making a difference with the quality of its products and services, especially in First and Business Class. As soon as the agreements are signed, a vast investment programme representing several hundred million euros in new cabin facilities will gradually be implemented.
To improve customer channels at airports, Air France will be increasing the use of new technologies to provide easier and faster passenger channels at new infrastructures – such as the S4 boarding satellite at Paris-Charles de Gaulle. Economic efficiency at stations will also be optimised by renegotiating purchasing agreements, streamlining processes and increasing productivity.
