France: EU finances development of Lyon airport with EUR 140 million loan

As a major gateway to France with constantly growing traffic over the last six years (+24%), Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport is expected to have to handle some 15 million passengers a year by 2020. In response to the corresponding need to build new facilities, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU bank, is supporting the project to develop the airport with loans totalling €140 million. The loan agreement was signed in Lyon on Thursday 11 July 2013 by Aéroports de Lyon’s CEO, Philippe Bernand, and EIB Vice-President Philippe de Fontaine Vive.

The loan will serve the two-fold purpose of providing effective and appropriate solutions to the growth in traffic and improving the quality of passenger services. The project will involve the construction of a new passenger terminal and reconfiguration of existing terminals and aprons to increase their handling capacity. Three new Rapid Exit Taxiways will be created on runway B and new landside and airside facilities such as access roads and long and short-stay car parks will also be built.

This is a flagship “European” project inasmuch as Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport is the main air transport hub between the Rhône-Alpes region and the rest of Europe, forming part of the trans-European core airport network.

At a time when the EIB is stepping up its support for innovative projects focused on growth and employment, the major plus point of this operation is that it will provide Aéroports de Lyon with a long-term loan on favourable terms made possible by the EIB’s triple A rating. In the current climate of shrinking commercial lending, it will enable the project’s overall financing plan to be optimised. Of the €140 million, half will be provided in the form of a direct EIB loan and half in the form of an indirect loan channelled through the banks BNP, Caisse d’Epargne and Crédit Mutuel.

This operation is also testimony to the enduring quality partnership forged between the EIB and the different economic actors in the greater Lyon area (HCL, SYTRAL, Greater Lyon, and others) over more than 25 years, bringing total EIB financing for economic development projects to date to €3.2 billion.

“More than just a financing operation, this is a flagship regional and European project geared to the joint goals of performance, innovation and competitiveness” said EIB Vice-President Philippe de Fontaine Vive at the signing ceremony. “Europe means above all taking practical steps to foster economic development and improve people’s daily lives in the heart of the regions. This is how we will together build the future”. 

Aéroports de Lyon’s CEO Philippe Bernand added “the European Investment Bank’s support for Aéroports de Lyon’s €260 million 2012/2016 investment programme demonstrates its confidence in our business model, growth strategy and operational performance in the framework of a committed sustainable development policy. Our aim is to place Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport, as France’s second biggest air gateway, at the service of the economic development of the city of Lyon and the Rhône-Alpes region, France’s economically second most important region.”