100 years of cross-channel air travel; London – Paris traffic down 50% since launch of Eurostar services in 1994

Last Saturday saw the 100th anniversary of Louis Bleriot’s first cross-channel flight from Calais to Dover, an event marked by a recreation and a number of celebrations. Since then the busiest air route between the UK and France has been between the two capitals, London and Paris, which are only around 350 kilometres apart. Passenger numbers on this air route peaked in 1994 at just under four million, since when the introduction of the high-speed Eurostar rail services, running under the English channel, has gradually taken an increasing share of the total travel market as improvements to the rail network routing have reduced the rail journey time.

Source: UK CAA Paris data is addition of CDG and Orly traffic

easyJet introduced multiple daily flights from London Luton to Paris CDG in June 2002 which provided a brief boost to the air travel market. Since then traffic has continued to decline with London Gatwick and London Stansted services disappearing completely.

In 2008 the annual air traffic between London and Paris fell to below two million passengers, less than half the number that travelled in the pre-Eurostar days of 1994.

Traffic data for June shows that demand is down a further 10%, dominated by the Heathrow flights which have seen passenger numbers fall by 10.7%. Air France services between London City and Paris CDG (operated by CityJet) have recently ended leaving just four different airline-airport combinations in the market.