“More than 70% of the electricity consumed in our airports is carbon-free”
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The world’s largest private airport operator, with more than 70 airports in 14 countries, VINCI Airports is leading the way on the major challenges facing the sector: decarbonisation, energy efficiency and frugality, safety, and security. Interview with Pierre-Hugues Schmit, Chief Commercial and Operational Officer at VINCI Airports, and Joffrey Maï, Environment & Sustainability Director of VINCI Concessions.
What steps are VINCI Airports taking to reduce the carbon footprint of the airports you manage?
Joffrey Maï: Our environmental policy is directly linked to that of the VINCI Group. Our target was to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 50% between 2018 and 2030. Having already achieved this last year, we are now targeting a 67% reduction by 2030.
And we have implemented multiple actions to make that happen. In terms of energy frugality, we are optimising our heating and climate control temperature set points, as we did during the energy crisis by setting the heating to 17 °C rather than 20 °C in our airports.
In terms of energy efficiency, we launched an energy management system project to monitor our water and electricity consumption. We are also replacing our lighting systems in the terminals and car parks, and on roads and runways. More than 70% of our lights have already been replaced by LEDs. More efficient HVAC equipment has also been installed. We are gradually replacing our gas boilers with heat pumps, sometimes incorporating geothermal systems.
“Technologies such as image pre-analysis enable us to identify possible threats.”
Currently, more than 70% of the electricity consumed in our airports is carbon-free, and we are adding solar installations – with 80 MWp already installed – and promoting self-consumption everywhere. Our vehicle fleet contributes only marginally to our CO2 emissions, but we are nevertheless in the process of electrifying it.
Joffrey Maï, Environment & Sustainability Director of VINCI Concessions
What about safety and security?
Pierre-Hugues Schmit: These are clearly vital issues. Among the many actions we are taking, the work on wildlife hazards, also known as bird strikes, are a definite focal point, with an extremely active bird-scaring policy. We also work hard to raise awareness within our teams on topics such as the debris that can get left behind on runways; we are starting to detect it using automatic image recognition. These systems have been installed on our largest sites in Lisbon and London Gatwick.
As for security, going beyond the rules in force locally, we are using technologies such as image pre-analysis, which can, for example, identify possible threats such as an explosive device divided between multiple items of baggage, and multiplexing, to allow us to pool our image analysis capabilities.
Pierre-Hugues Schmit, Chief Commercial and Operational Officer at VINCI Airports
How do VINCI Airport products and services contribute to stimulating growth in air traffic?
Pierre-Hugues Schmit: Our products and services have an indirect impact on traffic growth, for example when we offer multimodal services that improve airport access, as is the case at Lyon, London Gatwick, and Kansai International in Osaka.
But our commercial know-how is what has the greatest effect on traffic. The pricing conditions we apply to airlines vary significantly depending on the day of the week or time of year, on the types of aircraft, and on each airline’s ability to optimise the time they spend using our infrastructure. This ultimately affects ticket prices and therefore the amount of travel.
Another non-negligible factor, which relates more to image and comfort, is our policy to reduce waiting times, whether during check-in, security screening or boarding. Optimising our security lines with higher-performance scanners, better-trained personnel and improved signage is making the process considerably more fluid. At Kansai International Airport, for example, we have cut waiting times by a factor of four.
04/17/2025
