Heading for the summits: French alpine airports operated by VINCI Airports launch the 2024-2025 winter season

Alpine airports Grenoble Alpes Isère and Chambéry Savoie Mont Blanc, operated by VINCI Airports, are ready to welcome passengers for the 2024-2025 winter season with expanded offers, enhanced services and varied destinations.

Grenoble Alpes Isère Airport marked the start of the winter season with the arrival of the very first commercial flight on the morning of Tuesday December 3. Throughout the season, the airport will be offering a wider range of scheduled flights to 20 destinations. Chambéry Savoie Mont Blanc airport started winter operations on Saturday December 14, offering a choice of 12 destinations this winter.

New European destinations

Grenoble Alpes Isère Airport welcomed its very first commercial flight of the season on the morning of Tuesday December 3. The flight, operated by easyJet, arrived from London Gatwick, also operated by VINCI Airports.

Between December 2024 and April 2025, the airport will serve 20 destinations, including London, Edinburgh (which joined the VINCI Airports network in June 2024), Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Dublin, Warsaw and Vilnius. In addition to flights operated by seven scheduled airlines, a dozen tour operators have scheduled charter flights from countries such as the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Bulgaria and the Channel Islands.

New this season is the addition of a regular service to the Channel Island of Jersey, operated every Saturday by Blue Islands, from December 21, 2024 to February 15, 2025. In addition, the extended offer of the previous season is renewed, notably with easyJet to Manchester and several London airports, British Airways to London Gatwick and Heathrow, Ryanair to Birmingham, and WizzAir to Vilnius and Warsaw.

“Grenoble Alpes Isère Airport, the hub of VINCI Airports’ Alpine hub in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, is getting ready to welcome its passengers, whether from Isère or abroad, for the winter season with a diversified range of flights. Our teams work with passion every winter to guarantee quality of service and a high level of operational performance for passengers,” says Pierre Marnotte, Director of Grenoble Alpes Isère Airport.

Chambéry Savoie Mont Blanc airport kicked off its winter operations on Saturday December 14. The hub offers 12 destinations, including Edinburgh and London Gatwick. New for this season: Cardiff, Wales, will be served by TUI Fly every Saturday.

“Chambéry Savoie Mont-Blanc airport, the hub of VINCI Airports’ Alpine hub in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, is getting ready to welcome its passengers, Savoyards and foreign tourists alike, for the winter season. The airport’s teams, and all the seasonal workers recruited for the season, are mobilized to offer passengers the best possible experience”, emphasizes Frédéric Richer, Director of Chambéry Savoie Mont-Blanc Airport.

Prioritizing the passenger experience

At Grenoble Airport, a number of projects were completed during the off-season. The baggage sorting area has been enlarged, refurbished and equipped with a 3rd generation Explosive Detection System (EDS) capable of screening up to 900 bags per hour using 3D visualization.

To continue the decarbonization of the airport’s activities, a dozen electric runway machines have been deployed. The area dedicated to fuel distribution has been redesigned to open up an electricity delivery point and install twelve recharging sockets.

In the parking lot dedicated to airport staff, six 2.7 kWh sockets and an 11 kWh electric terminal have been installed to recharge cars.

The passenger parking lots benefit from improved traffic flow thanks to the creation of two roundabouts. These improvements are part of an overall two-phase project, financed by the Département de l’Isère, the second phase of which will begin in spring 2025, to complete the redevelopment of the parking lots opposite the commercial terminal.

As part of the drive to improve operational performance, almost 550 seasonal employees were recruited and trained this autumn.

At Chambéry, the airport’s “Passage” and “Operations” teams will benefit from digitized tools to facilitate baggage handling and optimize the monitoring of aircraft characteristics on landing. Passengers, meanwhile, will benefit from a duty-free boutique that will be completely redesigned in 2023 to become a “walk-through”, accompanying them all the way to the boarding gates.

With these new and optimized services, the Alpine airports are confirming their essential role in welcoming travellers and supporting the region’s dynamic tourist industry during the winter season.