People are just realising how far a famous airport is away from the city it supposedly represents, and they are flummoxed by the distance.
Planes land a whopping 131 miles away from the capital of a major European country – about 10 miles more than the distance between London and Birmingham.
Officially titled Chalons Vatry Airport, the airport is often branded as Paris Vatry Airport, including on its official website, and by Ryanair – who painted it as an ideal gateway to the French capital and Disneyland Paris, reports the Daily Mail.
Once you’ve disembarked at the airport, it takes a further two hours and nine minutes to reach Paris by car.
The airport’s website – parisvatry.com – has a vague catchphrase at the top, reading ‘so close, so fast’. What it is close to is up for debate, but Champagne and Reims certainly seem closer than Paris.
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Disgruntled social media user @Fernand90083869 said on Twitter/X: “How can you call it a Paris airport when the airport is 200km away from Paris?”
Despite its distance, the airport has a fascinating history. Construction began in 1953 in order to boost NATO’s air power problems during the Cold War.
When France withdrew from the integrated NATO military structure in 1967, the Americans left the air base and it was used as a French training base until 2000.
Today, it is open to both international heavy cargo and passenger planes, as well as being a training airport for airlines like Air France and British Airways.
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Ryanair schedules regular flights from Paris-Vatry Airport to both Marrakesh and Porto.
Other airports which are far from the city they claim to represent include Oslo-Torp airport, which is a whopping 73 miles away. It has flights to the UK, so Brits are warned to keep an eye out when booking.
Munich West Airport is similarly 70 miles away from the southern German city, taking an hour and 17 minutes to get there by road.
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