Paris Orly Airport reopens with limited service after three-month lockdown

The Paris Orly Airport has reopened with limited service after nearly three months of shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The first flight took off from the airport, 13 km south of Paris, at 6.25 a.m. Friday, Xinhua news agency quoted France 24 as saying.

A Transavia plane bound for the Portuguese city of Porto was sprayed by water cannons from the airport fire brigade vehicles in a so-called “water salute” ceremony before taking off, said the report.

Closed to commercial passenger traffic since April 1, the airport was expected to handle 70 flights of a dozen airlines carrying nearly 8,000 passengers on Friday. Before the pandemic, the airport had handled a daily average of 600 flights and 90,000 passengers. For now, only the airport’s Orly 3 sector is operational. Sectors 1, 2 and 4 will reopen later as demand increases.