AEROPORTS DE LYON

Their core work

Aéroports de Lyon is the operator of Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport (and associated Lyon-area airports), located in Colombier-Saugnieu, France. As an airport operator, their core business is managing the full cycle of airport operations — passenger terminals, airside traffic, ground handling coordination, and environmental compliance. In the H2020 context, they contributed as a third-party operational partner to SESAR research: providing a live airport environment, real operational data, and practitioner expertise to validate Total Airport Management concepts at a working mid-size European hub. Their value to research consortia is not academic output but operational ground truth — they are the airport, not a lab studying airports.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both projects belong to the same SESAR research line (PJ04 and its Wave 2 continuation), so the shift is one of deepening rather than redirecting. The first project (2016–2019) established their presence in EU aviation research with no differentiated keyword signature, while the Wave 2 project (2019–2023) shows a more articulated operational profile: airport performance metrics, regional CDM, airside/landside integration, weather management, and environmental dimensions all appear. This suggests that over time they moved from a passive data-provider role toward a more defined contributor with recognized operational knowledge across multiple airport management domains.

Their trajectory points toward broader operational research involvement — if they continue, expect contributions in airport sustainability, digital operations coordination, and performance benchmarking, all areas where an actual airport operator holds unique validation authority.

How they like to work

Aéroports de Lyon participates exclusively as a third party — they do not lead projects or receive EC funding directly. This is characteristic of airport operators in SESAR research: they serve as operational validation sites and data contributors within large, multi-actor consortia assembled by research institutes and ANSPs. Despite only two projects, they accumulated 43 unique consortium partners across 19 countries, which reflects the scale of SESAR consortia rather than a broad independent network. Working with them means accessing a real, operational airport environment — not a research team that produces deliverables.

Despite only two projects, they have touched 43 unique partners across 19 countries — a footprint that comes from the large, EU-wide SESAR program structure rather than independent outreach. Their network is broad geographically but domain-specific: primarily ATM, ANSPs, airports, and aviation research bodies.

What sets them apart

As an actual airport operator rather than a research institute, Aéroports de Lyon offers something most consortium members cannot: a working airport as a testbed. Lyon-Saint Exupéry handles millions of passengers annually and operates the full range of airport functions — ATC interface, ground handling, terminal management, environmental compliance — making it a credible real-world validation environment for ATM research. For consortia building SESAR or transport projects that need an operational airport partner to ground their work in practice, they are one of the few French regional airport operators with documented EU research participation.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PJ04-W2 TAM
  The Wave 2 continuation (2019–2023) is the more substantive project, where Aéroports de Lyon contributed across a wide set of TAM sub-domains including CDM, weather management, and environmental performance, showing a more developed operational research role.
• PJ04 TAM
  The foundational SESAR project (2016–2019) that established their place in EU aviation research, notable as their entry point into a major multi-national ATM research program.