Orly Runway 4 Closure 2026: Dates, Flights and Rights

When is Orly’s runway 4 closed?

Runway 4: closed until 17 December 2026

10 August to 17 December 2026 Runways 2 and 3 in service About four months of works

Runway 4 is fully closed from Monday 10 August to Thursday 17 December 2026 inclusive. The French Ministry for the Ecological Transition gives these dates on a page updated on 12 August 2026. The town halls of Orly and Boissy-sous-Saint-Yon, which informed residents in May, give the same end date. Every official source we checked says 17 December; one online summary mentions 18 December, which we haven’t used.

The works are a complete rebuild of the runway surface. According to Viry-Châtillon town hall, a job of this kind only comes round about every thirty years. Local press recalls partial repairs in 2016 and 2017. The contract went to Colas, in a consortium with Tersen, Spie Batignolles Valérian, JDC Airports and Cegelec (Colas press release, 10 June 2026). Traffic hasn’t stopped: Orly is still operating, with tighter slots.

Runway 2 was used for trials from 11 June to 6 August 2026, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1 pm to 4 pm, and those are now over. According to Ulysse (consulted on 26 October 2026), it’s still used mainly at the morning and evening peaks, with runway 3 taking most of the traffic.

For getting between Paris and an airport, a private transfer is worth comparing with the RER (the suburban rail network). On 26 October 2026, the Viator listing below shows €95.24 for 2 adults (€47.62 per person) on departures from 2 to 30 November, against €14 per person for the Paris Région-Aéroports ticket, which gets you to Orly by RER B and then the Orlyval shuttle (€7 at the reduced rate, Bonjour RATP).

Pixidia tip: if your flight is affected, don’t cancel it yourself before the airline has offered you a solution. The right to re-routing or a refund assumes the carrier has notified you of a cancellation (advice from the specialist press, in line with the logic of the European regulation).

Paris One-Way or Round-Trip Private Transfer from CDG/Orly Airport Price checked on 26 October 2026 for departures from 2 to 30 November 2026: €95.24 for 2 adults, or €47.62 per person · ★ 4.3 (105 reviews)

See the Paris-Orly transfer on Viator

Source: French Ministry for the Ecological Transition (in French), checked on 26 October 2026. The school holiday dates come from third-party sites and haven’t been cross-checked with the official French education ministry site.

Your flights: delay, transfer or cancellation

What the closure changes in practice

The ministry says runway 4’s traffic has been moved onto runways 2 and 3. According to the specialist press (Ulysse, consulted on 26 October 2026), runway 3 takes most of the take-offs and landings, and runway 2 is only used to a limited extent, mainly at the morning and evening peaks. Those describe how traffic is split. They say nothing about the schedule of any particular flight.

The pace is therefore tighter. Viry-Châtillon town hall quotes an average of about 30 movements an hour per runway, from 6 am to 11:30 pm, during the works. That’s a municipal average, not an official rate published by Aéroports de Paris (Groupe ADP) for the closure.

How many flights are hit? An estimate from the Fédération nationale de l’aviation marchande (FNAM, the French airline federation), picked up by the press in May 2026, puts it at up to 3,000 flights cancelled, rescheduled or moved to Paris-CDG over the period. It’s a federation estimate. We haven’t found any published figures from Groupe ADP or the airlines, nor any public list of cancelled flights (the parisaeroport.fr site wasn’t readable when we checked).

On traffic, Groupe ADP reported 2.858 million passengers at Orly in September 2026, down 7.9% on the year (Option Finance, 16 October 2026). The publication we read doesn’t attribute the drop to the closure, and nothing links it to the works.

Which airlines are affected? The press names Transavia first. It took over Air France’s domestic routes from Orly at the end of March 2026 (Nice, Marseille, Toulouse) and is among the most exposed. It also names Vueling, Royal Air Maroc, Air Algérie and Corsair. According to Ulysse (1 June 2026), Air Caraïbes operates up to 17 weekly flights to Pointe-à-Pitre and 15 to Fort-de-France, and French Bee 13 weekly flights to Réunion for the summer season. Those figures date from June, and nothing confirms they hold from October to December. These are the overseas routes most often cited as exposed. We haven’t found any published breakdown by airline.

The useful habit: check your booking with the airline, not just the airport printed on your ticket, and do it 48 to 72 hours before departure (press advice, Ulysse, consulted on 26 October 2026). Re-routing to Roissy-CDG can break a connection, and we haven’t found any source describing special handling for connecting passengers.

Five checks before you travel

• Confirm with the airline which airport is on your ticket, Orly or Roissy-CDG, 48 to 72 hours before the flight.
• Ask for the confirmed departure time in writing. Since 25 October 2026, departures from Orly are banned from 11:15 pm to 6 am; 11:15 pm is the time the aircraft leaves its parking stand, not the take-off time.
• Keep the notification of any change of time, airport or cancellation: it serves as proof for a compensation claim.
• If your flight is moved to Roissy-CDG, ask the airline in writing how you’re meant to get to CDG before paying for a journey yourself. To reach Orly, the Paris Région-Aéroports ticket valid for RER B and then the Orlyval costs €14 (€7 reduced) according to Bonjour RATP; we haven’t found a fare for metro line 14.
• Check the RATP page before taking RER B, which has scheduled closures in 2026.

Cancellation or transfer: your rights

EU Regulation 261/2004 applies in the event of a cancellation or a long delay. The French Ministry for the Ecological Transition sets out the choice offered to a passenger whose flight is cancelled: a full refund of the ticket, or re-routing at the earliest opportunity or at a later date of the passenger’s choosing. The airline must also provide assistance: meals, refreshments and, if a night is needed, a hotel. If you’re flying out of a UK airport, UK law (UK261) covers you on any airline, with the same choice of refund or re-routing and the same duty of care. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sets UK compensation at £220, £350 or £520, depending on distance and delay. A flight leaving Orly falls under the EU regulation described here.

The fixed EU compensation depends on the distance of the flight. According to VolClaim, which published an update on the closure on 23 October 2026, the amounts are those in the table below, with a €600 cap that the ministry’s page confirms.

Source: VolClaim (in French), checked on 26 October 2026; cap cited by the ministry’s passenger rights page (in French), checked on 26 October 2026.

The same site notes that a cancellation notified at least 14 days before departure would not carry the fixed compensation, while the refund or re-routing would still be due. That threshold doesn’t appear on the ministry’s page. The closure has been public since May 2026 (FNAM estimate on 12 May, ministry page published on 5 June), but what counts is the date the airline notifies you of the cancellation: if it warns you more than 14 days before the flight, the fixed compensation might not apply. The CAA’s UK261 guidance uses the same 14-day cut-off: compensation may be available if you were given less than 14 days’ notice (CAA, cancellations, consulted on 26 October 2026).

If you’d rather not travel, it depends on the airline. When it cancels the flight, a full refund of the ticket is a right. When the flight goes ahead and you pull out, the fare conditions of your ticket apply (Ulysse, consulted on 26 October 2026).

If the airline refuses, the ministry’s page points to a complaint to the DGAC, France’s civil aviation authority, within two months; another site gives a different deadline, so check it before you act. Keep the airline’s notification and your receipts.

The press also debates how to classify the works. Ulysse takes the view that works planned long in advance are not, in themselves, an extraordinary circumstance that would let the airline off the hook. That’s a press opinion, not a rule. There’s no general answer: it depends on the reason the airline gives for each flight.

If you’re moved to Paris-CDG, Ulysse says the airline must cover the journey between the two airports and let you choose the solution. That comes from a press article which hasn’t been checked against the official page for carriers: ask your airline for it in writing.

A revision of the regulation is under way. The Luxembourg government published a press release on 16 June 2026 announcing a conciliation agreement: according to the release, the Council approved the text on 12 June and the European Parliament confirmed it on 15 June. The release gives neither the final text nor a date of application, and the compensation threshold for delays isn’t confirmed in the sources we consulted. The ministry still cites Regulation EC 261/2004: as of 26 October, nothing lets us say the new rule is in force.

Night curfew: the new regime in force since 25 October 2026

An order dated 4 July 2025, published in the Journal officiel (France’s official gazette) on 9 July 2025, sets new night-time operating rules for Orly. Article 9 provides for it to take effect on 25 October 2026. It repeals the decision of 4 April 1968 and the order of 29 September 1999 (article 8). The regime has therefore applied in principle since 25 October 2026; we haven’t been able to confirm that the order faces no legal challenge.

The hours quoted by the press and several communes, 11:30 pm to 6 am, describe the old regime. They shouldn’t be read as the current schedule. The text sets two bands: departures are banned from 11:15 pm to 6 am, and arrivals from 11:30 pm to 6:15 am (article 3). The old regime banned all movements from 11:30 pm to 6 am, so departures are now banned a quarter of an hour earlier, and arrivals a quarter of an hour later. The ministry’s press release of 10 July 2025 takes the time the aircraft leaves its parking stand (11:15 pm) as the reference, not take-off. A flight that leaves or lands near these slots should therefore be checked against the airline’s actual timetable.

Source: Légifrance, order of 4 July 2025 (Journal officiel of 9 July 2025) (in French), checked on 26 October 2026.

The ministry’s press release of 10 July 2025 presents these rules as a compromise, aimed at limiting night-time operations. It doesn’t reduce the number of movements. The analysis LinfoDurable published at the time makes the same point, and the annual cap of 250,000 movements has existed since 1994. Exemptions are limited to safety, security and public order.

For your trip, the practical consequence is simple: if your flight leaves late or lands early, ask the airline for the exact departure and arrival time on your travel date, and keep the confirmed schedule in writing.

Overflights: the communes affected

The ministry points to traffic on runway 2 with unusual overflights above the south of the Essonne département. The communes of Boissy-sous-Saint-Yon and Viry-Châtillon, which have published information for residents, talk about low-altitude overflights. Orly town hall gives overflights from 6 am to 11:30 pm (published 28 May 2026). Information letters from Aéroports de Paris dated June 2026 were also passed on by other Essonne communes, including Morsang-sur-Orge, Morangis and Épinay-sur-Orge.

According to Viry-Châtillon town hall (page consulted on 26 October 2026), more than a hundred Essonne mayors have asked for a review of the Plan de gêne sonore (the noise nuisance plan) to fund home insulation, and its mayor says that use of runway 2 must remain exceptional, limited to these works. The flight itself isn’t changed by any of this.

Getting to Orly during the works

We haven’t found any direct bus shuttle between Orly and Roissy-CDG as of the date we checked. Getting between the two airports therefore means going through Paris, or taking a private transfer or a ride-hailing car. To reach Orly from Paris, the table below covers two options: RER B with the Orlyval, and metro line 14.

Source: Bonjour RATP, Paris Région-Aéroports ticket and Paris Je T’aime, checked on 26 October 2026. The line on free Orlyval travel comes from the press (L’Écho touristique, Lebonbon).

Two points are still worth checking before you leave. First, the Navigo pass (the Paris transport pass): free Orlyval travel for pass holders only lasted from 26 July to 16 August 2026, during the RER B works (L’Écho touristique, Lebonbon, press sources), whereas older guides still describe it as permanent. For Navigo coverage outside that period, the sources contradict each other and the Île-de-France Mobilités site couldn’t be consulted. Second, RER B works are scheduled over several periods in 2026: check the RATP page before your journey, especially if you’re taking an early or late train.

What other guides don’t tell you

The points below rely on official or dated sources, consulted on 26 October 2026; those based on the press are flagged as such. They correct or complete guides that are still circulating.

• The new night curfew has been in force since 25 October 2026. The order of 4 July 2025 provides for it in article 9, while the press and several communes still quote 11:30 pm to 6 am. Légifrance, Journal officiel of 9 July 2025 (in French; consulted on 26 October 2026).
• Departures and arrivals don’t have the same banned period. Departures are banned from 11:15 pm to 6 am, arrivals from 11:30 pm to 6:15 am. Légifrance, article 3 (in French; consulted on 26 October 2026).
• The curfew doesn’t cut the number of flights. It moves the permitted hours without capping movements, according to the analysis published at the time. LinfoDurable, 10 July 2025 (in French; consulted on 26 October 2026).
• The closure ends two days before the French Christmas holidays in zone C. The ministry gives 17 December as the end of the closure, subject to the works being completed; the holidays start on 19 December according to third-party calendars, not cross-checked with the official site. French Ministry for the Ecological Transition (in French; consulted on 26 October 2026).
• We haven’t found any direct bus shuttle between Orly and Roissy-CDG. The RoissyBus Opéra-CDG, which linked Paris to CDG, stopped running on 1 March 2026 according to Bonjour RATP and a secondary press source (European Traveler). It never served Orly, but older guides still mention it. Bonjour RATP (in French; consulted on 26 October 2026).
• Free Orlyval travel for Navigo pass holders only lasted from 26 July to 16 August 2026. It went with the RER B works, and older guides present it as permanent (press source). L’Écho touristique and Lebonbon (in French; consulted on 26 October 2026).