Paris-Beauvais Airport

For many travelers, Paris-Beauvais is just the airport with the long bus transfer and the cheap tickets. For spotters it is more: this is where Ryanair started in 1997 with flights to Dublin, and since then a sleepy provincial airfield has become the ninth-largest passenger airport in the country. With one main runway, two terminals and a schedule that consists almost only of Ryanair and Wizz Air, BVA is the French counterpart to Charleroi or Frankfurt-Hahn – including a history that goes back to the 1930s.

From field airfield to regional airport

The airfield at Tillé, just northeast of the city of Beauvais, was built in the 1930s and entered service in 1937. It is not granted a long peace: in June 1940, the Wehrmacht occupies the airfield. Until 1944, the Luftwaffe uses it first for bomber and later also for fighter units.

After the liberation in early September 1944, the Americans take over. Under the designation A-61, Beauvais becomes a field airfield of the US Army Air Forces; from mid-September 1944 to March 1945, the 322nd Bombardment Group flies from here with twin-engine Martin B-26 Marauders. On August 17, 1945, the airfield returns to France.

Civil scheduled traffic begins in 1956. In the 1960s and 1970s, mainly small British companies fly from cities on the English coast to Beauvais – a foretaste of the role the airport will later play. In 1962 the airfield gets a control tower, and in November 1979 today’s Terminal 1 opens. Still, not much is going on: in 1996, Beauvais counts just about 64,000 passengers.

Ryanair and the “Paris” name

The turning point comes with the full liberalization of European air traffic in April 1997. Only a few weeks later, on May 1, 1997, Ryanair starts three daily flights between Beauvais and Dublin. The principle is the same as at the airline’s other airports: a cheap, underused regional airport, quick turnarounds – and a name that puts the nearest big city in the foreground. In marketing, Beauvais-Tillé becomes Paris-Beauvais.

The concept works. By 2005, the airport already counts about 1.85 million passengers, and in 2012 it is just under 3.9 million. On June 25, 2004, Wizz Air joins as the second big low-cost airline, its first destinations being Katowice and Budapest. How this business model works in detail is explained in the article how low-cost carriers work.

With growth come conflicts. Because residents complain about noise, a ministerial decree of April 25, 2002 sets a night curfew: between midnight and 5 a.m., takeoffs and landings are prohibited, and for particularly noisy aircraft the ban applies until 7 a.m. For you as a spotter that means: the night is quiet, and the first wave of departures comes in the early morning.

Expansion: second terminal, new tower, better ILS

In February 2008, the owner, the municipal joint authority SMABT (Syndicat mixte de l’aéroport de Beauvais-Tillé), awards operations for fifteen years to the Oise Chamber of Commerce and Industry together with Veolia Transport. This is tied to an investment program of about €68 million. Today the operating company is SAGEB.

The most visible result is Terminal 2: inaugurated in early December 2010, about 6,000 square meters in size and since then the heart of handling. The apron grows in parallel; after an expansion in April 2011, twelve positions are available for medium-haul jets. In November 2011, a Category III instrument landing system enters service for runway 12, allowing landings even in dense fog. In 2019, a new control tower replaces the 1962 building.

The main runway runs roughly from northwest to southeast. Which direction is currently being flown depends on the wind, as everywhere – with a west wind, landings and takeoffs are generally on 30, with an east wind on 12. How to recognize the runway direction in use in advance is explained in the article understanding the runway direction in use at an airport. You can find the meaning of the runway numbers in the article on runway designations.

Ryanair and Wizz Air shape the picture

If you watch the sky in Beauvais, you see mostly Ryanair. Between 2016 and 2021, on average about 79 percent of passengers were on the Irish group, another about 17 percent on Wizz Air – hardly anything was left for everyone else. According to reference works, Ryanair connects Beauvais with dozens of destinations in Europe and North Africa, including Dublin, Barcelona, Porto, Prague, Rome, Marrakech and Milan Bergamo, some only seasonally. The airport’s official website lists more than eighty destinations in total as of October 2026.

On the apron, Ryanair mainly has the Boeing 737-800 and the newer Boeing 737-8-200, which you recognize by the extra emergency exits behind the wing. How to tell the generations apart is shown in the article telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart.

Wizz Air brings the Airbus share into the traffic. The Hungarians fly mainly to Central and Southeast Europe, such as Bucharest, Sofia, Belgrade, Chișinău or Tirana. On the airport’s departures board, Wizz Air Malta also shows up next to Wizz Air – so you find jets with Hungarian HA- and with Maltese 9H- registrations. Typical are the A320, A320neo and A321neo; the differences within the family are explained in the article telling the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart reliably.

Besides that there are only a few other visitors. Reference works name Volotea with seasonal flights to Bastia as well as HiSky and the Romanian Dan Air with connections to Moldova and Romania. easyJet at times had seasonal routes in its program but announced its withdrawal in 2024. Which airline serves which route changes with every schedule change – background is provided by the article on the summer and winter schedule.

Growth in numbers

The statistics show how strongly Beauvais has profited from the low-cost boom – and how quickly the airport recovered after the pandemic. After an interim high of about 4.3 million passengers in 2015, volume in 2019 was just under four million. In 2020 it collapsed to about 1.26 million, and then it went steeply uphill.

With about 6.68 million passengers, Beauvais ranked ninth among French airports in 2025. For you that means: on a normal day there is enough going on to collect many registrations, even if the mix of types stays narrow. With so many movements, many different aircraft from the big Ryanair and Wizz Air fleets land over the course of a day – including special liveries again and again. How to find them deliberately is shown in the article finding special liveries.

Spotting in Beauvais: what to expect

There is no known official spotting platform or observation deck in Beauvais. The scene uses public roads and paths around the airport, mainly in the approach paths of the main runway to the northwest and southeast. Because access, barriers and construction work can change, a look at current reports from the community is worthwhile before your visit.

The legal framework is important. In France, police and security services at airports sometimes react sensitively to large telephoto lenses. Which rules apply and how to behave is summarized in the article photographing at French airports. General guidance is also provided by Is plane spotting allowed? and proper behavior at the airport fence.

You plan where the sun will be on your date with the article on the sun position at your photo spot. If a fence disturbs the shot, the tips in photographing through the fence help. On stormy days, a look at crosswind landings is worthwhile – more on that in the article crosswind landings.

Getting there and daily rhythm

For most visitors, the way to Beauvais begins in Paris. The Aérobus connects Porte Maillot in the west of the city with the airport; the trip takes about 75 minutes. Other lines to Saint-Denis, Porte de la Villette and Chessy only run at times; the former departure in La Défense has no longer been served since December 2025. Alternatively, take the TER from Paris Gare du Nord to Beauvais and continue from there by city bus.

On site, you are most flexible with a car, because the approach paths are a good distance from the terminal on foot. Tips for the last mile are in the article getting to the spot.

Traffic follows the typical low-cost rhythm. After the night curfew ends at 5 a.m., the first departure wave sets in early in the morning, then the aircraft come back spread over the day and turn around again after a short ground time. In the late evening it gets quieter, and after midnight it is completely over. In summer, additional vacation routes provide a bit more activity.

Beauvais compared

In the Paris region, Beauvais plays a clearly defined role. Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport is the hub of Air France with long-haul, cargo and widebody jets from all over the world; how to spot there is shown in the article plane spotting at Paris Charles de Gaulle. Paris Orly Airport covers domestic, European and overseas traffic, including with Transavia France. For business jets and aviation history, Paris Le Bourget Airport with the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace is the right address.

In a European comparison, Beauvais belongs to the series of low-cost airports that advertise with the name of a metropolis but lie a good distance away. Brussels Charleroi Airport is the closest counterpart and is now much larger in passenger volume. From a German perspective, Frankfurt-Hahn Airport and Weeze Airport suggest themselves as comparisons, in Great Britain and Italy London Stansted Airport and Milan Bergamo Airport – both also strongly shaped by Ryanair.

Conclusion

Paris-Beauvais Airport is a textbook example of how low-cost airlines transform a provincial airfield. From a place with wartime history and a few tens of thousands of passengers, Ryanair and Wizz Air made an airport with almost seven million passengers a year. The variety of types remains manageable, but the cadence is decent, and many registrations from Irish, British, Hungarian and Maltese registers make collecting more varied than it looks at first glance.

For spotters, preparation counts above all: check the runway direction in use, choose the light to match the runway side, factor in the night curfew and know the French rules.