Nicolas Notebaert (VINCI) : VINCI Airports, de bons chiffres pour le trafic aérien cet été

There is no problem with individual choice. The collective question is how to reduce carbon emissions. The plane, as you said, Christophe, a few days ago, is roughly like a car today. A thermal car... what Air France tells us now when we fly: you did 2.7 liters per 100 km, you did 3 liters per 100 km. So, for example, the worst is to drive alone in a car for long distances; that must be banned. But what is important for this energy transition is that there are immediate solutions for the car. I am lucky to drive a hybrid car, I drive an electric car in the city. For the plane, it will take a bit more time. So the big work to limit aircraft emissions is, first, what we do in airports: we limit our emissions in the airport as much as possible. I'll come back to that. We are the world leader in airport decarbonization. And then, to work on the plane of the future, which we are doing with Airbus, so that by 2035 at the latest, the first green hydrogen planes will be available. And before that, there are sustainable biofuels, i.e., mixing kerosene with waste, for example used oils, which we have been doing since last year in Clermont-Ferrand. So all these changes in propulsion and fuels will progressively decarbonize aviation. But until then, we need to reduce all emissions everywhere, especially in airports.

As Augustin de Romanet said, with VINCI's shareholders, we don't believe that in the coming years it's not a big deal. We will follow demand. We welcome airlines and passengers all over the world, and the geographical situation of airports is very different. You mentioned earlier that we operate a high-speed line between Paris and Bordeaux. Between Paris and Bordeaux, there is a high-speed solution in two hours, so obviously even before the ban on Bordeaux-Orly, passengers had massively migrated to the train. Conversely, in countries where the population is growing a lot or the standard of living is rising a lot, most of these countries say: 'You have consumed carbon in the past years; we are in full development.' One of the challenges of our development in these countries is precisely to push them also towards the decarbonization of their infrastructure, benefiting a little from our vision and our history. So imagine that simply in one country we will not solve emissions on a global scale. We need to decarbonize transport, and that is our mission, our main work at VINCI.

Yes, that's the magic of our policy and this industry. Airports are similar: you know security, safety, air navigation procedures. But our vocation at VINCI is to export best practices between the different platforms in our network, and the magic is that it works. Let me take the example of Brazil. Sometimes rightly contested, some of the airport policies have retained us for 5 years as the best ecological airport in Brazil in Salvador de Bahia. So that means we can export a number of decarbonization practices. We have installed photovoltaic panels to produce green energy on the roofs. We completely treat the airport's water. We send zero waste to landfill. There are no more pesticides, no more incandescent bulbs; we use LEDs. And finally, we optimize temperature. We have all experienced being too air-conditioned when it's hot or too heated when it's cold. Yesterday, as part of our energy sobriety plan at VINCI, we decided that this winter, in slightly cold places, we would not heat the terminals above 17 degrees. Ah, you have to wear a sweater when you come to us? When you fly, I trust our passengers; they often have a small coat, and I know that our passengers, when they fly, are also concerned about the planet, so they will understand this small effort.

Xavier Huillard, our Chairman and CEO, announced it yesterday. VINCI is a large French group with industrial installations and also concessions, so we will do 15%. How will we do it? We replace all lighting with LEDs, as I said. We will reduce temperatures: 19 degrees in offices, which is the minimum possible in France, and 17 degrees in the terminals. But here again, our global model will be interesting. Yesterday, as part of our Environment Day, I exchanged with our airports around the world, and we decided to jointly look at whether we can do the same: 17 degrees when it's a bit cold, not heat these large terminals, and not air-condition when the outside temperature is 26 degrees or less.

It depends on the regions of the world. In the Americas, especially North and Central America, we have airports that are already above 2019: Dominican Republic, Costa Rica for us. Europe had very strong traffic this summer, which proves that the demand for travel, the demand for freedom after so many lockdowns, is very important. A country like Portugal, where we operate all airports, has reached roughly the traffic of 2019. And Asia is lagging behind for many reasons: many Asian countries remained closed, and China in particular is closed. But I have good news this morning: the Japanese Prime Minister has just decided to open the country on October 11. So that changes things. The Americas first, Europe very strong this summer, and Asia will likely come a bit later.

We have acquired three networks very recently that are symbolic of this evolution of the world. In Mexico, it's a country with strong domestic traffic and also relations with the United States, and you know that the US will likely relocate part of their industry from China to Mexico for geopolitical reasons. We won the airports of Cape Verde, which are islands off the coast of Africa; islands need aviation. It's a country that is both touristy and in full development. And we were awarded the airport of Papeete, Tahiti. You can imagine you can't go to Tahiti without a plane. But there again, an exemplary program: it will be the first airport in the world where we will implement cooling by cold water drawn from the bottom of the sea, so no electric air conditioning. Air conditioning by cold seawater. That will be a world first proposed by VINCI.

As you pointed out, the important thing is energy, not travel. Our need for mobility will not change, just like our need for housing or food. What we need is to change the energy for travel. Electricity, when it is decarbonized, is a good solution, but it doesn't work for very long distances by plane. That's why Airbus, as an aircraft manufacturer, says they are working on the hydrogen plane by 2035. We are their partner to change the infrastructure because we will produce green hydrogen at airports. That's what we will do in Lyon. But we are also a shareholder and founder, with Total and Air Liquide, of the largest global green hydrogen fund, a French initiative. Because hydrogen will develop everywhere: in non-electrified rail to replace diesel, for heavy trucks, probably more promising than for cars. But you don't believe that? All modes of transport will be affected: buses, heavy trucks, and also planes. And it's very promising. Simply, for planes, it will be liquid hydrogen.

It's very simple. We use all available surface area at airports by installing photovoltaic panels. At Lyon Saint-Exupéry in France, we launched our most important project of all French airports recently. But we also opened one this summer in Faro, where there is a lot of sun in Portugal, in Belgrade, in Salvador de Bahia, in the Dominican Republic. So we can put many solar panels on airports, and that will allow us to produce energy. For hydrogen, you break water molecules using renewable electricity to produce hydrogen. Exactly, with an electrolyzer, we produce gaseous hydrogen for land transport and liquid hydrogen for planes.

In the sense that today there is a new call for tenders underway. I'm not talking about that type of dossier because these are procedures. I've talked about those that are awarded. I'm obviously not talking about procedures that are... Either there are procedures and we move forward, or there aren't. Today there aren't any. And as I said, we have plenty to do. We have 70 airports, we are the world's largest private operator, and there is no greater challenge right now, especially for young people, than to decarbonize mobility, preserve mobility while reducing emissions. We are leaders in this activity. It's a great pride. It's a call for CVs this morning from Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of VINCI Concessions and VINCI Airports.