The skies of Paris closed for business during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games – National Achi-News

Skies over the Paris region will be closed for six hours as part of a massive security operation for the opening ceremony of the Olympics on July 26, Paris’ airport operator said on Wednesday.

Augustin de Romanet, chairman of Aéroports de Paris, said airlines were warned in advance of the closure and told they would have to fly around the restricted airspace.

“For six hours, there will be no planes over the Paris region,” he said on France Info radio.

The no-fly zone will extend for a radius of 150 kilometers (93 miles) around Paris, said the civil aviation authority and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

The unprecedented ceremony on water on the River Seine that runs through the French capital is the single toughest security challenge for Paris Games organisers, with crowds of more than 320,000 expected to line the waterway.

At least one French AWACS military surveillance plane will police the skies during the Olympics, using its powerful radar to watch for any potential threats in the air, France’s AWACS squadron commander previously told The Associated Press. Other military aircraft can be scrambled to intercept any unauthorized flights entering restricted Olympic airspace.

Separately, de Romanet said there is still a “very, very high” probability that small electric taxis in the air will be piloted with passengers over Paris during July 26-Aug. 11 Games, which, he said, would be the first in the world.

But European air certification authorities might only allow the taxis to fly passengers on an experimental basis, not commercially, he added.

Trend Now

• Train goes up in flames as it rolls through London, Ont. Here’s what we know

• Capital gains changes are ‘very fair,’ says Freeland, as doctors cry foul

“We have high hopes that we will be able to carry passengers experimentally which will pave the way, over Paris, for the first flight in the world of an electric vertical takeoff plane,” he said.

Multiple companies are developing electric aircraft that take off and land vertically. Some have already flown demonstration planes, in a race to turn their promises of environmentally friendly air transport into a commercially viable reality.

De Romanet insisted the plane was safe, saying: “I’m ready to climb on board.”

Critics worry that taxis zipping through the skies of Paris will be a potentially dangerous, noisy nuisance and affordable only for the rich. The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is among the opponents of proposals to be trialled on a few Paris-region routes during the Games.

& copy 2024 The Canadian Press