A Rosbif in Paris

On a Usenet group, someone recently asked if CDG was a good hub to travel through for international flights. Hmm, tough question, as I’m biased. The reason I’m biased is that I spend a lot of time at that airport so know it fairly well.

However, for non-residents, it’s not got a good reputation. I quote:

“CDG is the single worst airport i have ever used & I have used it a good few times, nothing works, it’s a fucking dump, full of jobsworth nazi security & mega waits to get through.

It’s a fucking horrible fucking mess to find your way round too, some euro-hoppers land at nearby terminals with no really useable quick way of getting round.

If you land & depart at/from the main terminal, then you might have a chance, but i seriously think it will just send your blood pressure sky high.

Another really fucking annoying thing, is as the departure gates are in kind of orbital pod kind of gates, most dont have toilets, so you are royally fucked if you need a piss after going through.”

Now whilst I’ve left the quote word for word, it’s not all accurate. The poster did concede that it’s been a good 5 years since his last visit to the place though.

Terminal-wise, T1 is still a dump. An absolute eyesore. A carbuncle, if you will. But it’s undergone some major renovation works over the last few years to make it more convivial. Some parts of T2 are a bit grotty, but not too bad (2E,2F and 2G are not bad at all). T3 is basic and always will be. Oh, and there are toilets.

Transport is fairly good between terminals but if you do have to go between two different terminals, then transit time seriously needs to be taken into account. Ground staff are good at collecting passengers in (short) transit (well, my experience is with Air France ground staff). Even so, I’d probably forget CDG as a transit hub if your transit time is short (I’d say less than 90 mins). Especially if you need to pass through passport control when coming in from a non-Schengen airport (such as the UK).

Plan of CDG

The URL above should give you some idea as to the layout of CDG. There are decent shuttle links and/or bus links between terminals.

One poster remembers that it took him ages recently, mainly because of the security checks between terminals (Something I’ve not experienced, obviously) . And he raised the point that invariably, it’s being operated by *one* man and *one* X-ray machine. For a planeload of passengers.

That’s a French thing and it’s on purpose. It’s to present the face of French customer service to all those visitors that are arriving in la belle France for the first time in their lives. It’s externally subcontracted, IIRC.

The next one is passport control. The same system has been set up so that, again, first time visitors can experience French bureaucracy. Generally the set up is most effective either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. French ATC plan to have 3 to 4 aircraft arrive at the same terminal at the same time. The Police then either go on an extended fag break or they nip off for a coffee, leaving one or (if it’s badly organised) two of their colleagues to check passports of nearly 1000 foreign nationals. So out of a possible 20 odd booths, you’ll only have one or two in use.

There is the Parafes system for EU nationals (if you’ve bothered to register for it) which you can use, but so as to inconvenience arriving passengers to the max, access to this is deliberately hidden behind plants and so only the wiliest of travellers (Or French travellers in the know) realise that the only way to the booths is by nipping under the guide ropes.

Lastly, the third way of introducing visitors to the country, is by waiting for a few hundred passengers to all queue up and then by shouting in a loud French voice “French citizens with French ID cards, this way please” as Jean-Pierre nips out from his quick coffee break.

I’ve experienced it all.

To resume, for a major hub on the continent, I’d use Schipol (all in one loooong building but very well organised). If I ever had too, which I don’t.