Photo: Julien Mattia/Xinhua
PARIS, April 24, 2024 (Xinhua) Tony Estanguet, president of the organizing committee of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, speaks during a presentation of the preparations for the for the upcoming Summer Olympics at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris, France, on April 23, 2024.
France's main international airport, Charles de Gaulle, witnessed a press conference for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The programme was presented, with the main airport, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle (CDG), and the smaller Orly airport being the two key gateways to the Olympic Games, which will open on 26 July 2024. What is keeping managers awake is the exceptional nature of the tens of thousands of arrivals - and their oversized luggage.
Some 85,000 athletes, coaches and officials are accredited for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, not including spectators, said Renaud Duplay, deputy director of the CDG. In terms of numbers, that's a "drop in the ocean" compared to the approximately 340,000 people who pass through CDG and Orly airports on peak summer days, he said. On the other hand, those arriving for the Olympics have expectations that are "different from those for which our infrastructure is designed."
For example, the canoeists will bring kayaks, and there will be crates, and crates of bikes and cumbersome poles for pole vaulters. "It will be a volume of oversized luggage that is just not normal," said Jerome Harnois, the top government official in charge of Paris airports. Lost or misplaced equipment could mean athletes lose Olympic glory and spark a storm of negative publicity for organizers and France as a whole. That's what the organisers want to avoid.
However, past Olympic Games have shown that visitor numbers actually decline during the Games as tourists postpone their visits. During the 2012 London Olympics, for example, visitor numbers rose by only six or seven per cent compared to normal, Harnois said.
Xinhua/gnews.cz-RoZ_07
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