Airports, environmental excellence
Veolia Transport has been appointed to manage services for Beauvais Airport in partnership with the Oise Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
France's eighth largest
The French government opened up a huge market when it decentralized management of airport services among local authorities in 2004.
Two million passengers a year
" Veolia Transport first got involved in early 2006," explains Valérie Beguin, Project Manager for the Development of Airport Services.
An initial call for tenders was launched in the spring for Nîmes airport in the Gard region. This was our first bid on this kind of project and we were successful ! Services were outsourced to us on January 1, 2007, under the terms of a five-year agreement."
Similar changes have taken place in regions throughout France : "The Nîmes bid led us to fine-tune our structure for subsequent tenders."
All this paid off. In April 2008, Veolia Transport teamed up with the Oise Chamber of Commerce and Industry to win a 15-year contract for Beauvais-Tillé.
This success was in part due to the nature of their groundbreaking partnership, built on a bedrock of continuity and modernity: "continuity", because the CCI had been the airport's concessionaire for the past sixty years and had turned Beauvais into France's first budget airport; "modernity", because the combined assets of Veolia's various activities could help the organization live up to its promise of making Beauvais "a truly environmental airport" (with measures including reducing noise pollution, promoting HQE programs across the board, and developing publictransportation services).
All this is vital for any airport experiencing an increase in traffic. Veolia Transport submitted proposals for Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées) on May 26, 2008, and for Lille (Nord) on April 30, again in partnership with the CCI.
Daily shuttle services carry passengers from Paris (Porte Maillot) to the airport, which lies just an hour from the capital.
With flights to twenty cities, passenger traffic rocketed from 257,000 in 1995 to 1,887,000 in 2006. In 2007, it exceeded 2,155,000. Forecasts predict 2,500,000 in 2008.
Beauvais airport is the only airport in France (with the exception of Orly, which has twenty times more traffic) to reduce night time services out of respect for local residents, following a decree by the French Ministry of Transport.
Source : aeroportbeauvais.com
The campaign to control noise pollution was implemented on January 21, 2005, (under the Beauvais Airport environmental charter) in line with strict specifications.
