Why Did Charles de Gaulle Take a Fall?

When it opened to great fanfare just 11 months ago, terminal 2E at France's Charles de Gaulle airport was not only hailed as a stylish triumph of innovative yet practical design; the €750 million complex was supposed to transform Paris into "the most powerful hub in Europe, ahead of Frankfurt and London," boasted Air France CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta. At full capacity, the terminal's twinned, 650-m-long main structures could handle 10 million passengers a year. Computerized baggage systems would transport luggage with minimal error, while travelers relaxed in the bright, spacious interiors of the tubular buildings. But today 2E is welcoming only the investigators who are still trying to figure out why a 30-m section of one concrete, glass and metal tube collapsed last week, killing four people and raising serious questions about 2E's future. "This concourse was a showcase, a crown jewel," laments Pierre Graff, president of Aéroports de Paris (ADP), which operates Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Orly, Le Bourget and 14 other airports in the greater Paris region. "This is a very hard blow to our image."

The collapse also threatens to pound ADP's bottom line. If major design or construction flaws are found to be at fault, the entire building might have to be razed and rebuilt. ADP refuses to speculate on that; independent experts say that after insurance is factored in,

	This concourse was a showcase, a crown jewel. this is a very hard blow to our image. — PIERRE GRAFF, president, Aéroports de Paris

ADP's rebuild costs could run from €200 to €300 million. And evidence suggests massive new investment will be required to reopen 2E even if razing the concourse isn't required. Even before the concourse opened, supporting pillars were repaired and reinforced after fissures appeared — and even that failed to prevent the audible cracking and widespread leaks that preceded the cave-in. Cracking elsewhere in the departure structure was heard after the collapse, forcing administrators to close the entire building. Even in the best of cases, says CDG director René Brun, 2E will remained closed for "months, even a year." The crash has even further-reaching business ripples. For years, ADP has sold consulting, engineering, and management services to airports abroad that want to improve or extend their infrastructure. Its acclaimed work in new airport construction in Asia, the Middle East and South America made ADP a front runner for similar contracts in Moscow, Tunisia and Tehran. True, that division accounted for just €23 million of ADP's total income of €1.4 billion in 2002, but that business had been a prestigious badge for ADP. Will it still win such contracts now?

Moreover, the collapse may dampen excitement over ADP's plan to spend an additional €640 million to expand Charles de Gaulle. The new 2E terminal — and a nearby S3 complex set to open in March 2007 — were designed to bring flocks of new passengers to Paris by offering sleek, interconnecting structures catering to the expanding business plans of Air France and partners including Delta and Korean Air.

"Air France is getting more and more successful, with bigger and more significant alliances," says David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine. "It has the capacity to expand — but not if its terminals fall down. This is going to seriously curtail the rate at which Air France can expand if the whole terminal has to come down because they find a design fault."

Brun is anxious to contain the crash's long-term damage. He promises that existing capacity will allow Air France to proceed with planned expansion. But even he admits that the situation could get worse: "If the findings were to show a fundamental design or construction failure, then we'd have to tear it down and start again."

Some experts predict that worst-case scenario won't come about — and also note ADP's good luck: the disaster struck shortly before 7 a.m., limiting a death toll that otherwise might have been in the hundreds. Others suggested the crash might prevent the airport from servicing the new superjumbo Airbus A380 when deliveries begin in 2006, or that it might even imperil Airbus' entire A380 project. That seems farfetched, since de Gaulle (like Frankfurt and Heathrow, which will welcome the first A380 flights by Singapore Airlines), is building the new S3 terminal largely custom-tailored to the A380's needs.

Still, the spectacular collapse of 2E's midsection has some wondering whether style didn't undermine solidity. Paul Andreu — ADP's main architect over the past three decades, and who also designed 2E — stood by the futuristic structure as "one of my children." Yves Egal, air transport specialist for France's National Federation of Transport Users' Associations, doubts that French devotion to style caused 2E's problems. "Atlanta is a wonderfully convenient airport that gives no attention to style, while the more chic Charles de Gaulle's main drawbacks lie in its organization, not safety," Egal says. "You can have both — and perhaps after repair, 2E will provide both." ADP and client airlines certainly hope so. But for the moment, de Gaulle's crown jewel is sadly tarnished.