Up until recently, Air France primarily operated out of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), though the airline also had a limited network out of Paris Orly Airport (ORY). Generally Charles de Gaulle Airport is considered the more premium and global hub, while Orly Airport is closer to the city, and is more popular for leisure flights.
In 2023, the French flag carrier announced plans to discontinue flights out of Orly Airport by 2026, and that has now officially happened, as Air France operated its last flight out of the airport yesterday (thanks to Aaron for flagging this).
In this post:
Air France consolidates flights at Charles de Gaulle Airport
As of March 29, 2026 (also the start of the IATA summer schedule), Air France has consolidated all of its domestic and international flights at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, ending service at Paris Orly Airport. In recent years, Air France’s service out of Orly Airport has been primarily domestic, as well as to French overseas territories, and select destinations in Africa.
The Air France-KLM Group isn’t abandoning Orly Airport, though. Rather, we’re seeing low cost carrier Transavia continue to provide extensive service from the airport, as it’s also growing its fleet with new Airbus A320neo aircraft, and it doesn’t serve Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Coinciding with these changes, Transavia is taking over the Air France lounge at the airport, and Flying Blue is adding new elite perks on Transavia, for those who still wish to fly out of the airport. All Air France employees previously working at Orly Airport were also guaranteed jobs at Charles de Gaulle Airport, if they wanted them.
Air France’s justification for cutting Orly Airport
Historically Air France’s presence at Orly Airport was focused primarily on short haul domestic flights, as well as leisure flights to French overseas territories. In recent years, we’ve seen France ban domestic flights in markets that have train connections that can be covered in under four hours. This in particular had an impact on Orly Airport, which saw most of these services.
When these planes were announced in 2023, Air France also noted how business travel demand has shifted, and that between 2019 and 2023, traffic on domestic routes out of Orly Airport fell by 40%, and demand for day return trips fell by 60%.
When you combine all of these factors, it was more efficient for Air France to just consolidate operations at one airport. Fortunately with Air France-KLM having a low cost carrier, the airline group can still have a presence at Orly Airport, just with a lower cost structure.
It’s not unlike British Airways’ strategy, as the airline has moved quite a few routes to London Heathrow Airport, while short haul flights out of London Gatwick Airport are exclusively operated with a subsidiary.
Bottom line
As of March 29, 2026, Air France has fully pulled out of Paris Orly Airport, in line with a plan that was announced back in 2023. The airline is consolidating operations at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, and then low cost carrier Transavia is increasing service at Orly Airport, while opening a lounge and adding new elite perks.
This seems like a sensible development for Air France, especially with the change in demand for domestic flights that we’ve seen in France in recent years. There’s of course value to having a single mega-hub in terms of connectivity.
What do you make of Air France pulling out of Orly Airport?
It's not true. I don't know why this false information about Air France pulling out completely from Paris Orly is still spread. The truth is, that Air France still serving the Corsica routes from Orly for the next couple of years at least.
My parents and I fly on American Airlines from Chicago-O’Hare to Paris-Charles de Gaulle.
No, you can't do that
I absolutely love Orly , its a lovely Airport , and its too bad that they made that choice, but people will continue to use other Airlines there
This makes sense financially. But oh man. The crews on ORY-JFK were consistently amazing. I loved that route.
Zut alors! Oui!
Ton français de collège n'est pas meilleur que le mien 1990Bot …. :-)
This is not true. AF has indeed ceased most of its operation from Orly (mainland France + overseas territories) but Corsica flights remain. It's a much smaller operation but not a complete shutdown.
I happened to be on the last flight to Nice yesterday and it was quite an emotional experience. We even got little cards from the crew to remember the occasion.
Another poster also raised this, and I’ll offer the same reply here too: I believe these are offered in partnership with Air Corsica as a public service obligation, and the PSO is specific to Orly, hence why these flights remain.
V/F
@VirginFlyer - This is correct :)
AF still offers short-haul domestic flights out of CDG. I'm on one next month (370 km). They can sell it to me, as I am connecting at CDG. A Parisian could not reserve that flight.
I used to book hidden city FB redemptions to DCG at great value from US with connection at ORY which allowed me to collect bags without penalty at CDG. Oh well.
Can't you do the same with train connections, or do they not give availability? I would check BRU.
I've also managed to use partner miles to get married segment availability to CDG by engineering an overnight connection. No problem tagging luggage only as far as Paris.
I assume you would not make it to the airport in time for the connection, due to oversleeping?
That's exactly what happened to me!
I’m confused - I still see AF flights from ORY to Corsica (and no CDG flights there fwiw in June / July of this year?). They show up as operated by AF (so not air Corsica)
Yeah, I'm still seeing flights between ORY and the four Corsican airport this summer listed as AF.
I believe these are offered in partnership with Air Corsica as a public service obligation, and the PSO is specific to Orly, hence why these flights remain.
V/F
Transavia’s most recent press release says that lounge access is only included for platinum and above for domestic itineraries, not international… disappointing
And so ends another exciting and important chapter in French aviation history. I, for one, will miss Orly.
ORY is very much carrying on- terminals have been renovated, ground transport options improved, and, in addition to La Compagnie and the various flights to Outre Mer destinations, you can catch flights on Iberia, TAP, UX, Royal Air Maroc etc and connect via their respective hubs.
What was left of AF operations at ORY under the AF brand was minimal. St. Denis, Fort de France, and Corsica. None of this is surprising.
Yes, in for these connections, it is much more convenient to connect at CDG. Many of them were only served out of ORY, which meant you had to take bus to the other side of Paris, susceptible to traffic jams.
Toulouse and Nice, the two most important routes, and the only two major French cities which are not conveniently accessible to Paris by train?
Unless and until France can connect Toulouse/Occitanie and the Côte d'Azur efficiently to Paris by TGV, high quality air service should have remained. Flying to Roissy is great if you're connecting, but if you intend to actually go to Paris, Orly is the LaGuardia to CDG's JFK.
There still is air service on those routes for connecting pax.
@Nick - There's still flights from Nice and Toulouse to Orly, just not on Air France. easyJet is actually going after this market quite aggressively. AF hopes people will switch to Transavia but somehow I doubt that.
@Samo: note I said "high quality air service should have remained." I would rather eat glass than fly EasyJet or Transavia if mainline Air France service is an alternative.