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The perfect airport doesn’t exist, but the new Paris Charles de Gaulle ‘Extime’ upgrade is close

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I spend a lot of my time in airports – probably as much as I do flying, which last year was 302 hours and 6 minutes. And I’ve been to airports all over the world, from mega-hubs like Dubai to a shed at the end of a runway in Costa Rica.

I’ve seen the Jewel at Singapore Changi, which was named best airport in the world eight years running by Skytrax, and I’ve been to Doha Hamad which took the crown last year. But I’ve never seen anything quite like what’s currently happening at Paris Charles de Gaulle.

I admit, Terminal 1 at Paris Charles de Gaulle doesn’t look much:

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

Before I explain why I’m impressed, let me rewind a second.

Last week, ADP, which stands for Aéroports de Paris invited me to Charles de Gaulle Airport to see their new end-to-end airport concept, which they’re calling Extime.

ADP operates all the Paris airports, including Orly and Le Bourget, as well as 26 international airports. Think of it as Manchester Airports Group but on steroids.

For the last five years, ADP has been thinking about what it can do to ensure better, faster and more connected passenger journeys. During covid, this crystallised around the concept of a more integrated, airport-owned solution which it is calling Extime. It extends from the start of the passenger experience to the end, including retail, dining and passenger amenities.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

Airports can be a horrible, confusing mess

Airports are huge, lumbering organisations that tend to be less integrated than you think. In fact, the airport itself tends only to be the connecting thread between tens if not hundreds of companies, from the airlines themselves to baggage handlers, catering companies, lounge operators, duty free companies and retail units.

Most airports do relatively little themselves and instead have a network of contracted companies offering all the services required to get you from A to B.

Almost all of these contracted companies operate in their own little bubbles. They rarely think about the extended journey a passenger takes which usually encompasses multiple interactions with different services.

Each company is only interested in providing a pleasant and profitable experience to the passenger whilst you’re on their turf. Once you’ve been handed off, they forget about you. There’s no continuity of service, and that leads to a lower quality experience and ultimately lower overall revenue for the airport.

Because yes, this is about money. At the end of the day, ADP is a commercial entity just like any other, but they believe that happy passengers = profitable customers. They believe that if they offer you a good experience, you’ll not only spend more, but you’ll also choose Paris over other airports.

(In Paris, of course, ADP doesn’t have any competition as it operates all the major airports. But it does compete with Heathrow, Schiphol and Frankfurt when it comes to transiting passengers, and of course ADP also operates 26 other airports globally.)

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

Can airports really be better?

The solution, they think, is more vertical integration. ADP is achieving this through a variety of joint ventures with specialists, such as with Lagardère Travel Retail for its duty free offering. Whilst ADP owns the majority stake, the partnership means it can tap into Lagardère vast experience and network of duty free retail.

Duty free is just one example. Lounges, gate areas and more are all being integrated.

ADP is calling the whole project Extime (pronounced the English ex-thyme rather than the French ex-team) which it officially launched last week after a number of trials over the past years.

The name is derived from ‘extra time’, which is the dead time that passengers have following security and immigration when they are waiting for their flight. The PR line is that this is extra and underused time that ADP wants to make more productive and fulfilling.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

So …. what is Extime, really?

Paris Charles de Gaulle is the first ADP airport to get the Extime makeover, and on our tour we got to see into a number of different terminals and parts of the Extime experience.

I’ll admit that I was sceptical at first – I’ve read enough press releases with marketing bollocks that my first reaction with such rebrands is cynicism. But I left the tour undeniably impressed.

The first thing to note is that Extime doesn’t mean that every terminal or airport is identical. Instead, Extime is a philosophy that is customised based on the passenger profiles unique to each terminal.

For example, in Paris, ADP categorises each terminal into two: either ‘lifestyle’ (read easyJet) or ‘premium’ (for full-service, mostly long haul flights). The Extime at experience at a terminal such as 2B will be different to the flagship premium Terminal 1, which is the first one to be fully ‘extimised’.

Better shopping and duty free

Retail is particularly important at Paris Charles de Gaulle, which boats the highest spend-per-passenger in the world. France has a legitimacy when it comes to luxury goods thanks to its heritage of both luxury fashion and cheese, wines and spirits. Especially for foreign buyers, being able to say you bought a French designer in Paris, even if it’s just at the airport, carries weight.

But it has also cultivated a reputation for itself, for example by stocking an (I’m told) impressive selection of Cuban cigars. Its customer reach means that it also gets first dibs on stock from Cuba.

It’s similarly the case for wine; in Terminal 1 I saw the wine larder, featuring collectors’ bottles retailing up to €40,000. These bottles aren’t just there for show – they’re there because they get bought, although admittedly not all that often.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 is the only place in Paris where you can find ALL major French luxury designers in one room. No department store in central Paris has this.

And it is impressive. This isn’t your average duty-free maze: it is an astoundingly high-end shop that tricks you into thinking you are in a luxury department store and not an airport. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, with genuine marble features and a stunning art-deco design facilitated by the vast high ceilings:

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

Crucially, however, is that this is all part of ADP’s Extime joint venture with retailers. Rather than individual brands doing their own thing, ADP has strung them all together. That enables the airport to offer a holistic experience. If you’re looking for a particular item but can’t find it in, say, the Hermes shop, the staff can walk you next door to Chanel. Or Gucci. Or Bulgari.

There’s no sense of competition or of trapping you in a particular shop to try and make a sale. Staff have the freedom to bring you between brands, in the same vein as in a department store, because ultimately all of the shops are part of the same joint venture. That leads to higher passenger satisfaction – you find what you’re looking for – and, for the brands, higher sales.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

There are other details too, such as the totally free barbering service where, they believe, just by spending some time in this luxury environment you’re more likely to buy something. (Unfortunately I did not have time to test this service out despite desperately needing a hair cut!)

Even when you are not spending hundreds (or thousands), you still get a good deal. Sign up to Extime Rewards and you get the duty free pricing, even when travelling within Schengen, thanks to a discount that is applied.

The scale and connectivity of the whole thing is shocking. It simply does not feel like you are at an airport.

Better lounges

Of course, once you’ve finished shopping you probably want to sit down and relax before boarding your flight, and this is something else Extime hopes to improve through Extime-branded lounges.

There are currently two Extime lounges in operation – one in Terminal 1 and the other in Terminal 2B, which is happily where British Airways is flying from and the lounge it is now using.

There is a level of fit and finish to these lounges that I have not seen at any other airport or independent lounge operator – it is really quite astonishing. A full review of the Terminal 2B Extime lounge, used by British Airways passengers, will follow.

Better gate areas and passenger amenities

Here’s the thing that really impresses me about the Extime project, however. It benefits everyone, not just those with spending five-figures at the airport or with lounge access.

Even the passenger facilities at the gates are beyond anything I’ve ever seen at airports, even supposedly award-winning ones such as in Singapore and Doha.

Instead of anonymous rows of identical airport seating, ADP has crafted lounge-like seating areas in a stunning art-deco style:

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

To be perfectly honest, the seating here is of a higher spec and better design than what I see at 99% of lounges or even top luxury hotels. All of it – yes all – is real marble, solid wood and brass fittings. The money that has been spent must be absurd.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

It is well lit and, crucially, there charging sockets at every single seat – both mains, USB-A and USB-C:

Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1 Extime

There are better facilities for families, too, including a centrally located baby change room:

Now, I don’t have kids, but this looks a lot nicer than the average in-toilet baby change facilities you normally see!

…. and coming soon, a new rewards app

Tying the whole Extime experience together will be a new rewards app launching soon. As you expect, it will let you earn and burn Extime points, but it’ll also let you book services such as fast track security and eventually offer a full marketplace for everything available in the airport, including duty free and fashion.

What can you redeem your points for? In addition to money off purchases, ADP wants to offer redemptions including fast track and lounge passes, as well as money-can’t-buy experiences such as tours of the air traffic control towers and other restricted areas of the airport. We will have to wait and see how it works.

And, as mentioned above, anyone with the Rewards app will also get a discount equivalent to VAT even when flying in Schengen.

Conclusion

By now, you’re probably wondering what kool-aid I’ve been drinking and whether you can have some, and I can understand the scepticism.

It’s hard to convey just how impressive Extime is. This is not the article I thought I’d be writing, but here I am. I spent six hours at an airport that didn’t feel like an airport at all. Instead, it felt like a luxury five-star hotel crossed with one of the nicest department stores I’ve ever seen.

Even more impressive is the fact that Extime will benefit all travellers, not just those with deep pockets. Even if you don’t spend a penny in duty free, you can still enjoy the world-leading gate seating areas, the baby room and other terminal improvements.

Now, Paris Charles de Gaulle isn’t perfect – no airport is – and the absurd nomenclature of the terminals (why are there seven Terminal 2s?!) is ridiculous. It also needs to get the basics right; on my flight home, security was a bit of a palava and there’s no date on the horizon for when it will fit next-generation 3D scanners where you can keep liquids and laptops in bags.

But despite all that, Extime is a huge step forward – and one I wasn’t expecting when I stepped foot in Charles de Gaulle for my tour.

For now, Terminal 1 is the first terminal to feature the Extime concept end to end; 2B (easyJet and BA, amongst others) is partially there as is 2G, the Schengen terminal. Terminals 2A and 2C are closed for 18 months to convert to Extime.

Thanks to Jerome and his team at CdG for the tour.

PS. Did you know that 3,000 cheeses are sold per week at Paris CDG (it was 8,000 before covid!)?

Category

General

Comments (177)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Rui N. says:
    6 Feb6 February 06:40

    Another case study on gold plating from a monopoly, who could have thought?

    • Rhys says:
      6 Feb6 February 07:34

      …and yet somehow still cheaper than Heathrow!

      • JDB says:
        6 Feb6 February 10:21

        Rhys, I think you know why that is! Successive UK governments of both parties have decided that services such as aviation and rail should be provided at minimum cost to the general taxpayer so we have a user pays model = higher airport passenger charges and rail fares. That’s not the case in France and money other countries where airports, railways enjoy huge subsidies directly and indirectly.

        I’m not sure if you have read previous regulatory settlements (the ‘current’ one is still awaited) to understand what sort of things HAL has to pay for (and recover in passenger charges) that other airports don’t have to pay for. A small example would be police and fire service plus at c.£170m/pa they have the largest single site rates bill in the country. The land for CDG was set aside in the early 1960s and you shouldn’t underestimate the additional costs of operating inside the very constrained site that is Heathrow and just two runways limits the ability to spread charges more. The way LHR is regulated may seem at first glance in favour of the passenger because airlines and passenger groups lobby very hard to cut investment as they are only interested in the short term, but with much higher long term cost consequences. e.g. when T2 was built the regulator didn’t allow (on cost grounds) a new baggage system to be built. The ancient system is now struggling so a new one will soon be retrofitted at a massively higher cost than quoted then, even allowing for inflation. It will be highly disruptive, now cost the passenger more and it has delayed building any new T1 as that’s where the T2 system currently lives. It was an absurd very short-termist decision to cut a small sum off charges.

        As a professional industry writer/journalist, just criticising LHR charges without actually appearing to know
        the publicly available facts is, at best, unfortunate. I hope that when the H7 settlement is published maybe next month, there will be a more balanced editorial position.

  • AlisonV says:
    6 Feb6 February 06:48

    After an appalling experience with lost luggage and Air France poor customer service (see the horrifyingly well subscribed “Air France lost my luggage” chat groupS), I am working hard to ensure that I avoid CDG at all costs and never fly Air France again.
    This has not changed my mind one bit…but some super fast security scanners might.

  • Tim says:
    6 Feb6 February 06:49

    Swearing and typos. Not good. Maybe ChatGBT can help.

    • Tony Hart says:
      6 Feb6 February 07:01

      It is “ChatGPT” you supercilious arse. Nothing quite like slinging a typo into your pathetic po-faced attempt at a rebuttal. 🤣

    • bob bilby says:
      6 Feb6 February 07:17

      didn’t we go around the buoy with “bollocks” on strictly a few years ago? it was technically a swear word but so mild that no one cares if you pump it out pre-watershed.

      rhys, i enjoyed this piece of free content – thanks – personally will only ever get to see it if transferring at some point in the future because paris is, in my experience, “bollocks”

      • Peter K says:
        6 Feb6 February 07:26

        However “mild” it may be to you, some of us prefer not to read it. No swearing is part of the winning formula on HfP over the years I have felt. Including, to a large extent, in the comments.

        • Dominic says:
          6 Feb6 February 07:34

          Personally, I enjoy reading HfP for some personality and uniqueness of each writer. I don’t think the word bollocks somehow causes an issue.

        • RussellH says:
          6 Feb6 February 10:43

          I have just look up “Bollock” in the OED. Not in the main part of the dictionary, but in the supplement it is defined as one of two wooden blocks used in connecting the yard to the topsail.
          “Bollocks” is presumably the plural of “Bollock”.
          No other meaning is given, so what is the problem?

        • The Savage Squirrel says:
          6 Feb6 February 13:52

          Peter K you must not have read all that carefully. There have been swearwords in HfP articles quite a few times before. They work exactly because they are used only very occasionally and judiciously, so they still make an impact and make the site more characterful. They also often emphasise that what is written is personal opinion and not cut-and-paste press release.

          Surely you have waded through enough marketing and press-release bollocks to know that bollocks is a very apt description for much of what is contained within them?

      • Roy says:
        6 Feb6 February 07:59

        The word doesn’t bother me but it did bother the ‘profanity filter’ at work. Email was blocked.

    • ChrisBCN says:
      6 Feb6 February 08:01

      Is bollocks a medical term? Or is the medical term balls,or testicles, or…

      I can understand some words that people find offensive because it is a slur (or worse) on a group of people, but bollocks isn’t a slur on any particular group (afaik), so who decided you would be offended with bollocks but not offended by the word treehouse?

      • Brian says:
        6 Feb6 February 09:02

        “but bollocks isn’t a slur on any particular group” – it clear is a slur on a group of people…

    • S says:
      6 Feb6 February 08:19

      Boo hoo

    • Tiger of ham says:
      6 Feb6 February 09:02

      How do you get thru life?

  • KP says:
    6 Feb6 February 06:52

    An extremely high number of adjectives used in this article to show Rhys was ‘impressed’

    I concluded that extime is just an upgraded terminal with a fancy fit-out like you see in doha or Singapore.

    Is it just that or a bit more than that ?

    • Rhys says:
      6 Feb6 February 07:53

      Basically, yes, although I’d say it’s nicer.

    • Dubious says:
      6 Feb6 February 10:52

      Oh I dunno, I rather like that Changi has carpet unlike all these newer fancy airports using marble, e.g. Doha and CDG.

      Carpets make for much more peaceful acoustics.

  • BJ says:
    6 Feb6 February 06:58

    I’ll be there in April and not expecting to notice anything different despite the article. What makes a perfect airport means different things to different people anyway regardless of the goals of airport owners or operators. To me, the perfect airport is one I can arrive at 60 minutes before my scheduled departure time or one I can transit comfortably in 60 minutes too. There are lots of airports meet my first requirement which thankfully includes EDI but the second is more difficult, often requiring the stars to align. Finally, I want to be able to walk out the airport no more than 20 minutes after the plane doors open for a domestic arrival and 30 minutes for an international arrival.

    • Peter K says:
      6 Feb6 February 07:32

      For me, a quick bag drop and security would make a bigger difference to the airport feel. Having been stuck in security for an hour in places like Copenhagen I can tell you that there was no desire, or time, to then look at duty free afterwards.

  • JFSV says:
    6 Feb6 February 07:05

    Some of the pictures of the gate areas look indeed nice and fancy, but we are talking about a (not yet live?) airport without crowds around, without any signs of wear in the furniture, etc. Hard to tell how this will work in practice in the future.

    I personally prioritise an easy “door to door” experiencie (which to me LCY offers like no others). A pity that LCY does not have a lounge, yet. This is of course easier to accomplish in smaller airports, noted.

    The article otherwise puts a lot of emphasis on the duty free shopping experience. Not sure how often other HfP readers make use of these…I rarely do to be honest.

    • Peter K says:
      6 Feb6 February 07:28

      That was my thought! How well will it wear after having thousands of people in there, putting their feet up, children sticking stickers left, right and centre etc?

      • Rhys says:
        6 Feb6 February 07:56

        I raised this with the team. From what I understand they acknowledge that it will require more resources in terms of upkeep but that this is something they are willing to do.

        The terminal was 100% operational whilst we were there, although passenger numbers are still down vs pre-covid. But it is primarily long haul flights

    • Marc says:
      6 Feb6 February 07:47

      The airport has been live since the beginning of December so has been used for 2 months. The terminal is stunning, but you are correct that security and bag collection leaves a lot to be desired as that all occurs in the old part of the terminal, which is quite confusing.

    • Jack says:
      7 Feb7 February 13:39

      London city will not ever have a lounge as it was always designed to be a in and out airport. In the case of CDG T2B it is a lovely terminal and the extime lounge is fantastic

  • Mike Hunt says:
    6 Feb6 February 07:12

    Not a patch on the late, great and much lamented Doncaster airport.

    • strickers says:
      6 Feb6 February 08:11

      Finningley. That brings back lots of memories, mostly good.

      • Rob says:
        6 Feb6 February 08:53

        It’s a fact of life that businesses you visit because ‘they are always empty’ won’t be around for long ….

        • strickers says:
          6 Feb6 February 09:21

          I wasn’t referring to Doncaster Airport Rob but to RAF Finningley where I did some of my pilot training.

          • Rob says:
            6 Feb6 February 10:56

            I know what Finningley was, I grew up down the road. However, most people in Yorkshire still call(ed) Doncaster Sheffield ‘Finningley’.

    • SammyJ says:
      6 Feb6 February 08:40

      Exactly my thoughts. Give me fast and friendly service and a subway sarnie for a fiver over marble floors and snooty brands every day of the week. Apparently Donny council are still looking into the lease proposal so it may not be over yet!

      • Mike Hunt says:
        6 Feb6 February 14:03

        Oh yes life is definitely not over for Doncaster airport- the council are investing significant effort and will access central government levelling up funding to create a Local airport for Local people ( there is even talk about an airside branch of Greggs – a UK first ? )

        • Save East Coast Rewards says:
          6 Feb6 February 14:24

          Glasgow had an airside Greggs but it was removed during expansion works to put in higher margin shops

  • JDB says:
    6 Feb6 February 07:33

    We lived in Paris when CDG1 was first built and the good shopping + Maxim’s restaurant were much talked about then, but more important was the novel round design with the escalator tubes and the satellites creating shorter walks. It’s now been modernised. The French State still owns 50.6% of the ADP group.

    • Londonsteve says:
      6 Feb6 February 16:06

      I’d love to have visited T1 shortly after it first opened. Preferably arriving in a Citroen DS taxi from central Paris. The experience must have been other worldly in the 70s.

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