Over the last few years there has been an explosion of cheap flights to a number of high profile tourist destinations in France. Budget airlines like RyanAir and easyJet are now offering daily flights to such well-known French tourist destinations, as Paris, the French Alps, Toulouse and the south of France.
These cheap flights often arrive at out of the way unknown airports. Airports, that before the low cost flights arrived where little used. Take for example, Ryan Air’s flights to Paris. They arrive at the Beauvais-Tille Airport, a little known regional airport north of Paris.
Beauvais Airport is a small local airport typical of those used by no thrills airlines like RyanAir. You get what you pay for, space is limited. Never the less the Beauvais Airport has everything that any airport needs. There is friendly staff, restaurant and bar, overnight parking and of course because it is small you don’t have to walk far to get to your flight. There is also car hire on the airport grounds and local hotels nearby.
The best way to get to Beauvais Airport is with the regular shuttle service. This coach service runs between the Beauvais Airport and Paris and is timed to the RyanAir flight schedule. Buses leave from Paris three hours before each departure and from Beauvais Airport 20 minutes after each arrival. The coach leaves Paris at Porte Maillot (Metro and RER stop Porte Maillot) on Boulevard Pershing, near the Concorde Hotel. Coach tickets can be bought online (They need to be obtained more than 24 hours in advance. There is a 2-euro processing fee when you buy on the Internet) or at the coach station in Paris or of course at the Beauvais Airport. Seating for the coach is reserved for those passengers with a airline ticket.
The travel time to Beauvais from Paris is about an hour and a half. Don’t let this throw you, yes that sounds long but getting to Paris’ main airports - Orly and Charles de Gaulle can at times take over an hour, if not longer depending on how you travel. All the cost of getting to the Beauvais Airport is not that much more than travelling to either Charles de Gaulle or Orly.
There are a number of other budget airlines other than RyanAir that serve the Beauvais Airport, including BlueAir, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Sterling European Airlines and WizzAir. These airlines fly to many major European destinations: Barcelona, Dublin, Copenhagen, Rome and Venice, just to name a few.
So if you are traveling on a budget should you use the Beauvais Airport? Is it really worth it? That depends; the flights offered can be a great value at times. Just know what you are getting into, you need to add 15 euros and about an hour and a half to each way (the cost and travel time of the coach). Also make sure there are not any other cheap flights going to another Paris airport, like Orly.
For more information about the Beauvais Airport see - http://www.beauvais-airport.com/.
Short note about the author
Jeff Steiner - http://www.jeffsteiner.com/ is an American living in the French Alps. Over the last eleven years he has learned a lot about living and traveling in France. Which is why he created http://www.americansinfrance.net.
Author: Jeff Steiner