EES introduction

This is the biggest change for anyone travelling to and from France for several years. After numerous delays and postponements, the European Union’s new Entry/Exit System (widely known as EES) will come into effect on Sunday, November 10th, the European Commission has said.

From that date, anyone entering or exiting the EU or Schengen zone (with the exception of exempt groups) will have to complete a pre-registration form giving details such as a name and date of birth and also provide biometric data – specifically fingerprints and a facial scan.

These will be used for two things: tighter security checks on passports and automatic counting of the 90-days of visa-free travel that some non-EU citizens are allowed within the EU/Shengen zone.

Once EES is up and running and the main problems have (ideally) been ironed out, the EU plans to unroll the second change –  ETIAS.

READ ALSO How to prepare for travel under Europe’s new EES and ETIAS rules

Planes

Airports – It disappeared at the beginning of the year, but the 100ml rule for liquids in the cabin at European airports returns from September 1st because of problems with 3D scanners at airports that were intended to make travel safe.

New services – EasyJet announced its service between Strasbourg and London Gatwick will become a year-round offering from this autumn, with flights on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays.

It will operate flights between Paris and Newcastle six days a week from October 27th until the end of March 2025. From the same date, the budget airline will also offer four flights per week between Nice and Madrid. 

Five flights per week between the Provence capital and Strasbourg start a day late; while a weekly service from Nice to Lanzarote begins on November 2nd.

The budget airline will also fly between Lyon and Berlin on Saturdays and Sundays from November 8th, and plans to add a route between Lyon and Newcastle from early 2025.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa is extending its reach to France by offering flights between Munich and Nantes over winter. 

Cancelled services – Transavia announced in August that the Paris-Pau flight would be cancelled, due to a lack of travellers on the line. The final flight from Paris-Pau will be on October 26th. Customers will still be able to travel between Pau and Paris using Air France, which operates four daily flights to/from Charles de Gaulle airport, Capital.Fr reported.

Ryanair also announced that it would suspend its services from Bordeaux-Mérignac airport in October.  announced in May that it would withdraw from Bordeaux-Mérignac in October due to the airport increasing its fees for airlines from November.

“Due to increased costs we don’t have any financial alternative but to close our Bordeaux base in November,” the company’s commercial director Jason McGuinness said in a statement released in French in May.

The airline has been operating around 40 flights to and from Bordeaux. In the statement it said the three planes and 90 staff currently based at the Bordeaux airport would be transferred to other, less costly, bases within its network.

READ MORE: What will happen to flights from Bordeaux airport after Ryanair leaves?

Trains

Discounts – You’ll have to move quickly on this because SNCF, has launched ‘Les Jours Traincroyables’ – a set of deals available until September 30th that are intended to ‘extend the summer’ with reduced prices for tickets and subscription cards.

Discount offers will range from lower prices on regional trains (TERs and Intercités), as well as deals on high-speed TGV InOui and Ouigo services.

READ ALSO Deals and discounts: How to save money on train travel in France this September

Good news for users of the RER A in Ile-de-France – the busiest local rail line in Europe, which transports some 1.4 million passengers per day. Trains will have more carriages to ease passenger overcrowding from the start of the new school year. 

TGV disruption – The Paris-Lyon TGV line will be closed for four days from November 9th for the implementation of a new signalling system. As a result the number of TGV services will be reduced and journeys will be significantly longer as they will be diverted on to the classic lines.

The Paris-Milan line, which has been closed for over a year after a rockslide, was expected to reopen at the end of 2024. This will be pushed back to the first part of 2025.

Night trains – Major track works also mean that the Paris-Briançon will only run on a few weekends this autumn, returning to a full schedule on December 7th. Until that date, a ‘road substitution service’ will operate, while the rail service will run on weekends in November.

SNCF also announced in June that the Paris-Berlin night train, which was expected to become a daily service in October, would be suspended from August 12-October 28 for construction work. This means that the Vienna-Paris and Berlin-Brussels routes will also be affected. The Vienna-Brussels line will operate three times a week as planned, according to the Austrian company ÖBB.

New train lines

Starting in October, there will be new ‘blue’ trains with 200 seats and space for 18 bicycles connecting eastern France to Germany, as a collaboration between the French Grand Est region and the Länder of Baden-Württemberg, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, according to Mesinfos. These trains will run at 160km/h.

The first lines will be put into circulation on the French side in October, and they will include Metz-Tier, Matz-Saarbrücken, Strasbourg-Karlsruhe, and Mulhouse-Müllheim. 

There will also be two new ‘classic’ (slow-moving) trains put into service during the final months of 2024. The first is a Paris-Rennes line, which will take about four hours, in comparison to the usual 1 hour and thirty minutes on TGV lines. It will pass through Massy-Palaiseau, Versailles, Chartres, Le Mans and Laval.

The second is a Paris-Bordeaux line, which will take about five hours (compared to a little over two hours on a high-speed line). It will also pass through Juvisy, Les Aubrais, Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, Futuroscope, Poitiers and Angoulême stations.

Spanish rail service Renfe also previously announced plans to expand their services on the French network, including lines between Paris and Barcelona, Paris and Lyon, and Paris and Marseille. However, the expected dates of operation remained unclear as of September 2024.

Similarly, the Paris-Berlin high-speed TGV, expected to make the journey direct and only seven hours long, is expected to launch sometime before the end of 2024, but a precise date is still unknown.

Bag limits – The French national rail service SNCF announced in February passengers travelling on the high-speed TGV InOui services and the Intercité lines would be limited to two large pieces of luggage per person.

Passengers will be able to take two large pieces of luggage with dimensions of up to 70cm x 90cm x 50 cm and one smaller piece such as a bag, laptop case or rucksack of up to 40cm x 30cm x 15cm.

Starting on September 15th, fines of €50 can be imposed for those who do not abide by the rules.

READ MORE: French train passengers limited to two large bags

Roads

Tunnel – A reminder that the Mont Blanc tunnel is closed for 15 weeks from September 2nd for the first test stage of a major renovation project.

During the works, heavy goods vehicles travelling from France will be diverted to the Fréjus tunnel in Savoie. Remaining traffic will use the Fréjus tunnel and the Grand and Petit Saint-Bernard, Mont Cenis and Montgenèvre Alpine passes.

READ ALSO Mont Blanc tunnel to close for several weeks

Paris – Lane restrictions on certain routes in and around Paris for the Olympic and Paralympic Games end on September 11th – good news for commuters heading back to work following the summer holidays. However, the Olympic lanes will eventually be turned into carpool and public transport lanes.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans for the speed limit to be dropped on the city’s ring road, in an effort to meet the city’s climate goals. Based on her plan, the speed limit would go down to 50km/h in October, dropping from the current 70km/h. However, this has been opposed by regional authorities.

Parking – Owners of SUVS, beware. The cost of parking an SUV in Paris is set to triple from September 1st, following a citizens’ referendum. In the first to the 11th arrondissements, the cost will jump from €6 to €18, while in the 12th to the 20th it will increase from €4 to €12.

READ ALSO Paris votes in favour of €18-per-hour parking fees for SUVs

Traffic jams – The summer traffic congestion is over for 2024, with roads back to their usual rush hour / non-rush hour routines. The next forecast very heavy traffic days are on Friday, October 25th, Thursday, October 31st, and Sunday, November 3rd, and again on Friday, December 20th.