Orly Airport

Location

Orly Airport covers 15.3 square kilometres (5.9 sq mi) of land. The airport area, including terminals and runways, spans over two départements and seven communes:

Management of the airport, however, is solely under the authority of Aéroports de Paris, which also manages Charles de Gaulle Airport, Le Bourget Airport, and several smaller airports in the suburbs of Paris.

First years

Originally known as Villeneuve-Orly Airport, the facility was opened in the southern suburbs of Paris in 1932 as a secondary airport to Le Bourget. Before this two huge airship hangars had been built there by the engineer Eugène Freyssinet from 1923 on.

World War II

As a result of the Battle of France in 1940, Orly Airport was used by the occupying German Luftwaffe as a combat airfield, stationing various fighter and bomber units at the airport throughout the occupation. As a result, Orly was repeatedly attacked by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), destroying much of its infrastructure, and leaving its runways with numerous bomb craters to limit its usefulness by the Germans.

After the Battle of Normandy and the retreat of German forces from the Paris area in August 1944, Orly was partially repaired by USAAF combat engineers and was used by Ninth Air Force as tactical airfield A-47. The 50th Fighter Group flew P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber aircraft from the airport until September, then liaison squadrons used the airfield until October 1945.

Post-war

The USAAF diagram from March 1947 shows the 6140-foot 27/207 (degrees magnetic) runway (later 03R) with 5170-foot 81/261 runway (later 08L) crossing it at its north end. The November 1953 Aeradio diagram shows four concrete runways, all 197 feet wide: 03L 7874 ft, 03R 6069 ft, 08L 5118 ft and 08R 6627 ft.

The American United States Army Air Forces 1408th Army Air Force Base Unit was the primary operator at Orly Field until March 1947 when control was returned to the French Government. (The United States Air Force leased a small portion of the Airport to support Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) at Rocquencourt). The Americans left in 1967 as a result of France's withdrawal from NATO's integrated military command, and all non-French NATO forces were asked to leave France.

In May 1958 Pan Am DC-7Cs flew to Los Angeles in 21 hr 56 min; TWA, Air France and Pan Am flew nonstop to New York in 14 hrs 10-15 min. Air France flew to Tokyo in 31 hr 5 min via Anchorage or 44 hr 45 min on a seven-stop 1049G via India. Air France's ten flights a day to London were almost all Viscounts; the only other London flight was Alitalia's daily DC-6B (BEA was at Le Bourget).

Terminals

Paris-Orly Airport features two separate passenger terminal buildings, Terminal Sud (South Terminal) and Terminal Ouest (West Terminal):

Terminal Sud (South Terminal)

The brick-style southern terminal building consists of six floors. While the smaller basement level -1 as well as the upper levels 2, 3 and 4 contain only some service facilities, restaurants and office space, level 0 features the arrivals facilities as well as several shops and service counters. The airside area and departure gates are located on the upper level 1. The waiting area, which features several shops as well, houses gates A1-A10 and A40-A42 and is furthermore connected to the gate areas Hall A (gates A11-A27) and Hall B (gates B2-B20) to each side of the building. 15 of the terminal's departure gates are equipped with jet-bridges, some of them are able to handle wide-body aircraft.

Terminal Ouest (West Terminal)

The western terminal has a different layout than Terminal Sud, consisting of two floors and a gate area of four "fingers" rather than a brick-style layout. The ground level 0 features the arrivals facilities including 8 baggage reclaim belts as well as several service facilities and shops. The departures area is located on level 1 with more stores and restaurants located here. This central departures area is connected to four gate areas named halls 1-4 which contain departure gates 10A-10P, 20A-20L, 31A-31F and 40A-40G respectively. 23 stands at this terminal are equipped with jet-bridges, with several of them also able to handle wide-body aircraft.

Other facilities

AOM French Airlines had its head office in Orly Airport Building 363 in Paray-Vieille-Poste. After AOM and Air Liberté merged in 2001, the new airline, Air Lib, occupied building 363.

Train

Car

Orly Airport is connected to the A106 autoroute (spur route of the A6 autoroute).

Buses and coaches

Accidents and incidents