An Olympic-sized mission

If pulled off, it would be an effort worthy of a gold medal: prepare Paris-Charles De Gaulle Airport for the athletes and spectators descending en masse on the French capital for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The person charged with such a responsibility? Régis Lacote, the airport’s Director.

Lacote, who has been with Groupe ADP, the operator of Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly and private terminal Paris-Le Bourget, for 23 years, was living in Delhi at the time. There, as global COO of GMR Airports, he represented Groupe ADP’s interests in the group of seven Indian, Indonesian and Greek airports that it had recently acquired a 49 percent stake in.

When handed the Olympic-sized task, Lacote’s response was immediate – and resolute.

“There was no discussion,” he tells The CEO Magazine. “We had to succeed. We were supporting the image of France.”

As one of the main gateways for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Lacote and his team prepared to be the first point of contact for many of the 15,000 athletes, 208 delegations, 60,000 accredited persons and 28,000 media, particularly those coming from outside European borders.

They also had to prepare to handle 115,000 pieces of luggage for the media and delegations alone. It all went off without a hitch.

“It was an overall mobilization of not only Groupe ADP but the entire airport, and the achievements were tremendous,” he says proudly. “Not only were we congratulated by the city of Paris, but also the International Olympic Committee.”

An opportunity to transform

Lacote didn’t approach the games with a short-term outlook; instead, he used the massive sporting event as an opportunity to drive significant transformation across the airport’s operations, particularly considering the second mandate that drew him back home to France from India.

“I was also charged with giving Paris-Charles de Gaulle new hope to develop this airport again after we had to cancel the project for Terminal Four,” he explains.

In the works for a number of years, the plan to create a fourth terminal was shelved – definitively – in February 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was cancelled by French President Emmanuel Macron not only because of the pandemic, but also due to the environmental considerations,” Lacote recalls.

In June 2023, France introduced targeted restrictions on domestic short-haul flights in an effort to bring down carbon emissions. In pulling the plug on the project, Macron asked Groupe ADP to think about a future where decarbonization and development at the airport could be more balanced, he says.

Future-forward

In March 2025, that answer was revealed with the launch of the Paris-Charles de Gaulle development vision for 2035/2050: sobriety, rail connectivity and low-carbon energies.

“We had three major topics to address,” Lacote explains of the report. “First, the decarbonization of our operation. In France, we can no longer plan to develop without decarbonizing, not only the airport but also the airlines that operate here.”

It is, he adds, part of Groupe ADP’s DNA to be a leader in this. The second major challenge was the development of intermodality between air and train transport as the airport looks to double the traffic of people who arrive by train – a figure Lacote currently puts at 15 million and hopes will double to 30 million in the coming five years and reach 45 million by 2050.

“It is a great opportunity to decarbonize many aspects of mobility to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, whether we’re talking about passengers, employees or the residents who live close by and can use the station for their own access,” he confirms.

---

“Groupe ADP is committed to long-term partnerships. With 90 percent of private-sector jobs at Paris-Charles De Gaulle (PCDG) subcontracted, a global, innovative approach is essential. Through initiatives like Aérowork, a shared recruitment platform and unified employer brand, subcontractors attract candidates collectively. Demanding in daily operations, Groupe ADP engages providers and local communities in major transformations, like PCDG 2035, reimagining a sustainable and multimodal city.” – Xavier Gondaud, CEO/SESA Chairman, WO Group

---

Advertisement

The third challenge was to maintain and develop the competitiveness of Paris-Charles de Gaulle, which is the leading airport in the European Union and welcomes over 200,000 passengers a day.

“We are in strong competition with other hubs in Europe, and we need to continue to be a site that creates value for both the Paris region and the country,” Lacote notes.

Today, the airport generates 90,000 jobs across 700 companies, including key partners such as safety, security, hospitality and customer experience experts WO Group.

“We are forecasting an additional 10,000 employment opportunities by 2035 and an additional 25,000 by 2050,” he says.

The report builds on Groupe ADP’s 2025 Pioneers strategy, which charted a course to strong foundations across customer experience and hospitality.

“We had very precise goals, and one was to ensure that Paris-Charles de Gaulle would be in the Skytrax top 10,” he reveals.

Those goals were achieved: since launching its intentions in 2022, the airport has been named the best European airport every year, including this year.

The Pioneer strategy also launched the Group’s road map to carbon neutrality across investment in its own solar farms as well as geothermal production in the two main Paris airports.

Leading the race

In early 2025, Lacote was also appointed Executive Vice President – Operations & Innovation for Groupe ADP. In his new capacity, he knows that Paris-Charles de Gaulle has a rich, 50-year history of managing and developing assets to draw upon.

Yet he also appreciates that as a metropolitan hub in Europe, it is at a disadvantage compared to airports in destinations with space to expand and build to meet today’s customer expectations.

“One of the main challenges that we have is the need for constant renewal to keep Paris-Charles de Gaulle at the forefront of international expectations and to continue to lead in customer experience and decarbonization, while not being able to rebuild it from scratch,” he explains.

Essentially, according to Lacote, Groupe ADP is running an international race – but with different rules than most other competitors.

“Thanks to the quality of the people in the Group, we’re still able to remain in the highest position in this race, as Paris-Charles de Gaulle continues to be among the leading airports in the world.”