Aéroports de Lyon has reported that Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport has handled 10m passengers to date this year (correct at the time of writing).

Last year, the airport grew its passenger numbers by 9.8% to 9.5m, with international traffic accounting for the bulk of this share (66.5%), rising by 12.5% to 6.3m.

To mark the achievement, the record will be projected in the skies in the coming days in gratitude to the airport’s personnel and passengers.

Tanguy Bertolus, Chairman of the Management Board of Aéroports de Lyon said: “I am very proud to celebrate this event. It is the result of the work of Aéroports de Lyon teams and our partners to make Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport the major gateway to the Lyon region.”

LANDMARK YEAR

The 10m pax milestone builds on an impressive year for Aéroports de Lyon, which was acquired by global operator Vinci Airports last year.

As reported, Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport has made significant strides in improving the commercial experience across a 70,000sq m footprint in the new Terminal 1, with hall b opening on 7 October to accomodate growing passenger traffic demand.

This has been spurred by the launch of more than 10 new airlines in 2017 to seven new destinations – Rouen, Nuremberg, St. Petersburg, Las Palmas Gran Canaria, Tenerife South, Essaouira and Oujda.

New routes have also been announced for 2018 by Transavia (Palermo, Djerba, Malaga and Catania), easyJet (Corfu, Fuerteventura, Tel Aviv and Rennes) and Volotea (Alicante, Cagliari, Majorca and Palermo) in the Spring.

Vinci Airports, which handled 132m passengers in 2016 (+10%) across 35 airports worldwide, grew its revenue by 5.1% to €18.5bn ($21.9bn) in the first half of this year with concessions revenue totalling €3.2bn/$3.8bn (+11.8% on an actual basis).

Earlier this year, Vinci secured an important 30-year concession at Salvador-Deputado Luís Eduardo Magalhães International Airport in Brazil.