No-fly zone across northern France for start of Olympics

On one of the busiest travel days of the year, planes will be excluded from a vast area of northern France for more than five hours during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. The ban has been imposed due to fears of a terrorist attack.

- SIMON CALDER

A no-fly zone covering 28,922 square miles – almost the size of Belgium – has been ordered by the French civil aviation authority, the DGAC, on the afternoon and evening of Friday 26 July. That is a key date for millions of travellers from France, the UK and elsewhere.

The Zone d’Interdiction Temporaire (ZIT) includes both the giant Paris airports – Charles de Gaulle and Orly – as well as Beauvais, a key budget airline base north of the capital. Normally the three would handle more than 350,000 passengers between them on a peak summer Friday.

The DGAC says: “A temporary prohibited area (ZIT Ceremonie) is created to ensure the implementation of the special air security arrangements as part of the protection of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games 2024.”

Almost all planes will be banned from a circle with a radius of 80 nautical miles centred on Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris from 6.30pm to midnight local time.