Vinci Airports and the Ille-et-Vilaine CCI will remain in charge of Rennes airport for two more years. This is what the Brittany Region, owner of the site, decided, raising some questions among those familiar with the matter. A gift? Far from it. Rather the consequence of a schedule slippage, against a backdrop of negotiations with the State, which have remained in vain to date.
Since March 1, 2010, Rennes and Dinard airports have been managed by Vinci as part of a “public service delegation” (DSP). It was initially scheduled to end on December 31, 2024. But to renew it, at least two years of procedure are necessary. Call for tenders, certification by the administration, publication of a contract award notice… “To be ready on time, the procedure had to be launched at least at the end of 2022. Except that by mid-2024, we hadn’t seen anything coming yet,” confides a source within CCI 35. From now on, we’re heading towards… December 2026.
At Vinci, we assure that the extension of the concession has no major consequences. “Operations continue,” notes the new director, Yannick Bouiller, at the helm of a Rennes airport which not only has not regained its pre-Covid attendance but has again lost passengers in 2023. It is therefore little say that the two-year extension is more than welcome: it gives Vinci more time to get things back on track and show that it is legitimate to retain management of Bretillian airports. “We remain motivated to complete the DSP and meet our objectives,” says Yannick Bouiller soberly.
A rapprochement with Nantes that is taking off
To justify the shift in the schedule, several reasons are put forward by the Regional Council. Among them, the desire to adapt to the restarting of another airport, that of Nantes, owned by the State. For several months, the Region has been campaigning for a rapprochement between the two structures. The objective: to better distribute flights to desaturate the Nantes platform for the benefit of its Rennes counterpart, which is underused.
However, the discussions yielded nothing, the Nantes call for tenders having been launched at the end of 2023 without including Rennes airport. “We have raised awareness among the administration and local stakeholders… But no response from the State,” says Michaël Quernez, vice-president in charge of Mobility in the Brittany Region.
The file had little chance of success in any case: between the cancellation of a first call for tenders in Nantes in September 2023, the abandonment of the Notre Dame des Landes project and the still pending question of compensation due to Vinci, the atmosphere was too electric to envisage an airport big bang in the West.
Make Dinard stand on its own two feet?
In addition to the Nantes question, the Brittany Region also justifies the postponement of the Rennes call for tenders by “discussions with the peripheral local authorities of Dinard around an autonomous economic model”. Less looked at than its Rennes counterpart, Dinard airport is doing well and has achieved balance by focusing on business aviation and industrial activities. “Dinard is the leading aero-industrial center in Brittany thanks in particular to Safran and Sabena, two companies in the aeronautics sector. There are things to do to continue to develop this,” indicates a person familiar with the matter.
To the point of letting Dinard stand on its own two feet? For the renewal of the concession, the Regional Council leaves the choice to the candidates: “a single management for the two airports or two separate management contracts for Rennes and for Dinard, without the possibility of only applying for one or only for the other,” explains Michaël Quernez. What will the candidates choose? Who will face Vinci? Official response in 2026.
