St Etienne Airport (EBU)

Saint-Etienne is a public airport serving the city of the same name, and is one of the smaller airports in the Massif Central area of the country. It is distinguished from others by its official IATA code of EBU, its ICAO code of LFMH, and its second name of the Saint-Etienne-Bouthéon, as it is located in the town of Andrézieux-Bouthéon. It is approximately 12km, or 7 miles to the north-northwest of Saint-Etienne, and is served by a few well-known airline carriers. It also has a well-equipped terminal building, from where various forms of transport are available.

Besides Saint-Etienne, this small French airport serves many other towns in the Loire department of the country, and is located within the Rhône-Alpes region, which is famous for numerous attractions and classified as the second busiest region in France for tourism. Saint Etienne Airport is surrounded by important cities, most notably, Lyon, and therefore provides an important gateway to the area. It is often referred to as the sister of Lyon Saint-Exupéry. It also has many appealing qualities, for example, it usually only takes twenty-five minutes to disembark or board an airplane of the Boeing 737-800 variety that can hold 189 passengers, it has no restrictions on night flights and its terminal can operate at flexible hours. The terminal and all its facilities are user-friendly for its passengers, especially with parking adjacent to the building. The Rhône-Alpes region counts for ten percent of the French population, or six million inhabitants, and the catchment area includes about four million potential clients located within an hour and a half drive.

From a broad perspective, Saint-Etienne Airport is located to the south-west of Lyon and Bourg-en-Bresse, to the south-east of Clermont-Ferrand and Roanne, and to the north-east of Le Puy. To the east are the cities of Chambéry and Grenoble, and further south from Lyon is Valence. Far north of Saint Etienne is Paris, the capital city of France. Much closer are the areas of La Fouillouse, Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert, Veauche and Saint-Cyprien, and Montbrison is found to the north-west. To the south-east of Saint-Etienne lies the Parc Natural Regional du Pilat, one of the six regional natural parks for which the region is famous. Firminy, Roche-la-Molière and St-Chamond lie nearby as well. There are also two national parks which are popular tourist attractions.

The flights offered from the airport are quite easy to reach, as there are bus and taxi services available. Passengers can also travel in their own vehicles, and park in the car park, which has 250 spaces for private vehicles. There are main roads surrounding the airport, of which the A72 is perhaps the most important. The A72 is taken north to the airport from Saint-Etienne, or to the south, from Clermont-Ferrand or Roanne. Major Autoroutes also link the important cities nearby. Buses operated by the airline companies of Ryanair and Pegasus Airlines run from the Châteaucreux Train Station in Saint-Etienne, and from the Lyon Perrache Station, on various days of the week. The shuttle schedules will usually correspond to their scheduled flights.

As mentioned above, Ryanair and Pegasus Airlines are two of the airport’s main airline carriers, along with Luxair as well. The airport is therefore considered as low-cost, with flights on budget airline carriers to Porto, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen and to Bastia. Several other airline companies may serve the destination as well, such as Air France, Air Méditerranée, Russian Airlines, Tunisair, Regional and NetJets. In general, the airport offers scheduled flights, business flights with AeroTaxi and CATEX, helicopter flights with HélicoLoire, specially chartered private flights and freight flights. Direct flights from Saint-Etienne are also regularly organised to specialised trade fairs with an international audience.

In the year 2007, a partnership agreement was entered with Aéroport Lyon-Saint Exupéry, making it possible to create a large Saint-Etienne/Lyon Airport hub. The new hub of the region consisted of three airports. The two mentioned as well as the Lyon-Bron. Saint-Exupéry was the major international hub, Lyon-Bron was considered as the business one, and Saint-Etienne served as the charter and low-cost destination, with easy accessibility, free parking and immediate boarding procedures. This complete ‘airport system’ deemed a third runway at Lyon-Saint Exupéry unnecessary. However, in 2009, the airport of Lyon discontinued the agreement and all three entities returned to their original state of independence.

Over the previous few decades passenger traffic at Saint-Etienne Airport has had dramatic fluctuations. In the later 1990’s, passenger traffic was soaring at over 150,000 per annum, but dropped to 130,000 in 2000, to 126,000 in 2001 and to 112,000 in 2002. Then from 105,000 passengers in 2005 to just 4,640 passengers in 2006. Traffic figures remained on the extremely low side until 2010, when the location welcomed a little over 70,000 passengers.

Today, the small airport of Bouthéon has a single terminal building of 2,300 square metres, a general aviation terminal of 1,200 square metres and a freight terminal of 3,000 square metres. It has one asphalt runway, 2,300 metres in length, and 45 metres wide. The passenger terminal has a capacity of 350,000 passengers per annum, and is well-equipped to meet the needs of its arriving and departing clientele. It is also able to welcome disabled passengers, as there are adapted toilets, phone booths and information counters, clear walkways, pavement ramps and eight reserved car parking spaces. Further facilities include a bar/snack bar and shop, a cash machine, a Bureau de Change, WiFi internet connections and meeting rooms for business passengers.

Further details regarding the airport information can be obtained over the phone, contact number 33 (0)4 77 55 71 71, or the email address of aeroport@saint-etienne.cci.fr can be used.

The (IATA) 3 letter code for Saint Etienne Airport is EBU named by the International Air Transport Association in Quebec, Canada. To aid your travel the Geo coordinates are 45.50000, 4.50000 you can enter this into your tom tom or any in car GPS system to help to get directly to Boutheon.

Find below a choice of Airlines, destination and flight times from Saint Etienne.

Some of the busiest airlines that fly from the airport are Pegasus Airlines and Ryanair between them they cover 2 of the total destination of 2. Pegasus Airlines is the most frequent with around 3 flights a week out of a total of 6. Pegasus Airlines travels to 50% of the total destinations. Sabiha Gokcen being the most frequent destinations.

You can see below a selection of nonstop flights with approximate times

If you require a hire car when arriving at Saint Etienne Airport you will find a good selection of popular companies situated in the Arrivals lounge or close by. Make sure that you have an up to date credit card when hiring your vehicle. To be sure of beating the queues it is wise to book your Saint Etienne Car hire online, please visit the link for more information.