Paris-Orly Airport

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For the NATO military use of this facility, see Orly Air Base (Paris). For other uses, see Orly (disambiguation)
Paris - Orly Airport
Aéroport de Paris - Orly

IATA: ORY – ICAO: LFPO
Summary
Airport type Public
Operator Aéroports de Paris
Location Paris
Elevation AMSL 291 ft / 89 m
Coordinates 48°43′24″N 002°21′46″E / 48.72333, 2.36278
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
02/20 7,874 2,400 Concrete
06/24 11,975 3,650 Asphalt
08/26 10,892 3,320 Concrete

Paris - Orly Airport (French: Aéroport de Paris - Orly) (IATA: ORY, ICAO: LFPO) is an airport located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, south of Paris, France. It has flights to cities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. Prior to the construction of Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Orly was the main airport of Paris. Even with the shift of most international traffic to Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Orly remains the busiest French airport for domestic traffic and the second busiest French airport overall in terms of passenger boardings.

Orly Airport extends over 15.3 km² (5.9 sq. miles) of land. It straddles 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 International Airport, Le Bourget Airport, and several smaller airports in the suburbs of Paris.

Orly Airport has two terminals: west and south. They are linked to Paris by freeways, Air France buses, RATP buses (called OrlyBus) and the Orlyval automatic metro service, which connects to the Antony (Paris RER) station. A tramway link is planned for the near future.

Contents

[edit] Airlines and destinations

[edit] South Terminal

[edit] West Terminal

  • Air France (Ajaccio, Algiers, Annecy, Aurillac, Avignon [ends July 31], Basel/Mulhouse, Bastia, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Brest, Brive La Gaillarde, Calvi, Cayenne, Clermont Ferrand, Figari, Fort-de-France, Hassi Messaoud, Lannion, Limoges, Lorient, Lourdes-Tarbes, Lyon, Marrakech, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice, Pau, Perpignan, Pointe-à-Pitre, Quimper, Rodez, St. Denis-Reunion, Strasbourg, Toulon, Toulouse)
  • CCM Airlines (Ajaccio, Bastia)
  • Clickair (Seville, Valencia)
  • Iberia (Barcelona, Madrid)
  • TAP Portugal (Faro, Funchal, Lisbon, Porto)
  • Twin Jet (Cherbourg, Jersey)

[edit] Transportation

Orly Airport is connected to the A6 autoroute.

Orly Airport is connected to the RER B train line at Antony (Paris RER) train station by the Orlyval automatic shuttle. Orlyval is free to use between the two Orly terminals (west and south).

A shuttle connects Orly Airport to the RER C train at Rungis.

Buses to Paris include:

[edit] History

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 famous engineer Eugène Freyssinet from 1923 on.

[edit] Military use

Main article: Paris - Orly Air Base

During World War II Orly Airport was used by the occupying German Luftwaffe and was repeatedly bombed by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force (USAAF), destroying runways, buildings and hangars.

After the Battle of Normandy, Orly was repaired by the USAAF Ninth Air Force in July and August 1944 and used as tactical airfield A-47. The 50th Fighter Group flew P-47 "Thunderbolts" until September from Orly then liaison squadrons used the airfield until October 1945.

Until March 1947 the American United States Army Air Force 1408th Army Air Force Base Unit was the primary operator at Orly Field, when control was returned to the French Government. Orly was reactivated as a commercial airport on 1 January 1948, however the United States Air Force leased a small portion of the Airport until 1967 as an air transport facility.

[edit] Accidents and attacks

On June 3, 1962, an Air France Boeing 707 charter, the Chateau de Sully, bound for Atlanta, Georgia, crashed during take-off. There were 132 people on-board; 130 of them were killed. The only survivors were two stewardesses seated in the rear of the plane. The charter flight was carrying home Atlanta's civic and cultural leaders of the day. At the time, this was the highest recorded death toll for an incident involving a single aircraft.

On March 3, 1974 Turkish Airlines Flight 981, otherwise known as the Ermenonville air disaster crashed in the Ermenonville forest after take-off from Orly on a flight to London's Heathrow Airport when an improperly closed cargo door burst open and explosive decompression brought down the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and killed all 346 onboard.

On January 13, 1975, several men, including Ilich Ramírez Sánchez AKA Carlos the Jackal, made an unsuccessful bazooka attack on an El Al airliner. The Boeing 707 was taking off for New York City with 136 passengers. They missed the aircraft, but damaged a Jugoslovenski Aerotransport McDonnell Douglas DC-9 which had just disembarked passengers from Zagreb. The men tried again on January 19, again without success when police spotted the terrorists and opened fire with a submachine gun.

On July 15, 1983, the Armenian underground organization ASALA bombed a Turkish airline counter in the airport, killing eight people and wounding over 50.

On 24 December 1994, Air France Flight 8969 from Algiers to Paris was hijacked at Houari Boumedienne Airport before it had even taken off. It was eventually flown to Marseille, where hijackers wanted it to be refuelled in order to run it into the Eiffel Tower. French commandos intervened and shot and killed all four hijackers.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Gallery

[edit] See also

[edit] Note

  1. ^ a b Air Canada and France's Corsairfly announce commercial partnership.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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