Metz-Nancy Airport Faces Uncertainty as Routes Dwindle, Casablanca Link at Risk

The Metz - Nancy - Lorraine airport is in the doldrums. Six months after stopping its link to Lyon, the Twin Jet company put an end on Friday, June 7 to its line connecting Lorraine to Marseille, opened since 2003. Now, Lorraine Aéroport only serves five destinations: Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), Casablanca (Morocco), Oran, Algiers and Constantine (Algeria), as can be read on its website. Tui Fly connects Casablanca every Monday and Thursday from Lorraine until October 24, 2024. In view of the latest news, we have every reason to fear the cancellation of this line to Morocco at that deadline.

The announcement of the closure of this line is bad news for this airport located between Metz and Nancy and commissioned in 1991. "We were notified about ten days before the closure, it’s bad news in terms of supply, but we know that domestic flights are suffering throughout France. This type of domestic flight is no longer relevant, so we’re trying to rework other destinations, like vacation flights. We have a few touches for 2025, around the Mediterranean basin," Yves Loubet, director of Lorraine Aéroport, told France 3.

The closure of the Lorraine-Marseille line could lead to new layoffs, fears for her part Sandra Biache, airport supervisor and CFE-CGC union delegate. "There is only the flight to Toulouse left and we don’t know if it will be maintained. The risk is job cuts. There have already been two waves of layoffs during Covid. If Twin Jet stops the flight to Toulouse, there will only be two airlines left at this airport. While other airports are seeing their activity improve, for us it’s the opposite. There is a management problem and there is no real will to develop. The staff is very worried, we don’t understand where this is going to lead us."

According to the staff, the Lorraine airport is losing profitability and seems to be running out of steam in the face of the tough competition from the airports of Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, Liège or Brussels-Charleroi, which have settled in the region.