Most airports are at least a few miles outside of the cities they serve or whose names they share – but one in Europe takes this to another level.
Paris Vatry Airport in France is 101 miles from the centre of the French capital it’s named after. And it takes a mammoth two and a half hours to transfer between the two by car.
This is nearly twice as long as the average flight between London and Paris. Thankfully, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport is much closer to the city that it also has in its name – and is only about 17 miles north of the city centre, or about an hour by car.
Paris Orly Airport, another international airport, is even closer. This airport is just 13 miles south of the city centre – about half an hour by car, or 25 minutes on the new metro line 14.
However Paris-Vatry Airport – also known as Châlons Vatry Airport – is around 100 miles to the east of Paris. It is located near Vatry in the Grand Est region of France.
It primarily serves as a low-cost and cargo airport rather than a major hub for passenger flights to and from the French capital. Consequentially, it only has a single terminal that caters to passengers, with basic amenities like food services, car rentals, and parking facilities.
Originally a military airbase in the 1950s, it was part of NATO’s response planning for conventional and nuclear wars. It was designed as a base for 50 fighters with three large hangars.
However, France effectively withdrew from NATO in 1967 over President Charles De Gaulle’s concerns about United States dominance in NATO – and what he perceived as a special relationship between the White House and the United Kingdom.
As a consequence, American forces left Vatry Air Base and it operated as a training facility, under the control of the French Air Force, for many years. However, as the new millennium arrived, the site was sold and converted to civilian use.
It now functions as an international hub for heavy cargo operations and commercial passenger flights. Paris Vatry Airport is also a training site for pilots of both commercial and military aircraft.
Regular users of the facility include airlines such as Air France, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, KLM, Transavia, Transavia France, and Swiss International Air Lines. Thanks to its long runway, the airport is frequently used by Airbus for testing new aircraft, including trials for the A350’s Velocity Minimum Unstick.
In March 2021, ASI-GROUP established operations at the Marne airport in a 2,500-square-meter hangar to expand its customer delivery centre and conduct aircraft transformation and fitting activities. This facility accommodates various aircraft, including the ATR 72, Airbus A321, Boeing 737, and large helicopters.
