Geneva Airport's French sector: one road, one car park

What is the French sector at Geneva Airport?

It is the French side of the same airport, and Geneva lists it as a terminal of its own beside T1 and T2. Inside the building the two sides are joined, but only for passengers: without a flight ticket for the same day, nobody can walk between the French sector and the Swiss side. A driver collecting someone does not have one, so for a driver the two sides are two different places. Every zone quoted here sits on the Geneva Airport page.

Which road goes to the French sector?

The customs road from Ferney-Voltaire, and no other. The airport's France Sector page says access is only via that road, and that pedestrians and cyclists cannot use it. Geneva publishes nothing else about reaching the sector by car. A driver who arrives on the Swiss side cannot park and walk across, so the way to the other side is back out and round by road.

Where does a car stop in the French sector?

At P20, the car park of the French sector: five minutes on foot from the terminal, 214 spaces, no online booking, prices printed in CHF. Geneva publishes no drop-off or pick-up rule for the French sector at all, so P20 is the only place its parking pages give. The name is not settled either. One answer in the airport's FAQ calls this car park P21, while the parking access page in English and in French, and the price estimator, call it P20.

Where does a car drop off on the Swiss side?

At the Kiss & Fly on the departures level of Terminal 1. It is free, open 24 hours, signposted from the airport approach road and a few steps from the Terminal 1 entrance. It is for setting down and nothing else: "Passenger pick-up is not permitted in the Kiss & Fly area. This area is not a parking: no parking, no waiting, and no unattended vehicles."

Geneva publishes no number of minutes for the Kiss & Fly, no maximum stay and no height limit. It says only that the stop must be very short. It also publishes no penalty for misusing the area, and does not say how the kerb is controlled.

Where do you meet an arriving passenger?

In a car park. The airport sends everyone meeting an arriving passenger to a car park, and P2 is its short-term one: three minutes on foot from the terminal, 150 spaces, no booking. A vehicle left in P2 for more than 24 hours may be towed.

P1 is the closest, with direct access to Departures and Arrivals and 2,600 spaces, part of them bookable through ResaPark. You pay at the machines with the parking ticket on the way out.

What does a short stop cost?

At P2 the airport prints two points and no more: up to 5 minutes free, and 60 minutes for CHF 5. Between those two it prints nothing, and past an hour it says only that rates rise significantly, without giving the rate.

For P1 and for P20 there is no short-stay price at all. Geneva publishes a day and a week for each, CHF 38 and CHF 197, and no free minutes and no maximum stay. The rate shown at the entrance of the car park is the one that applies.

How tall can the vehicle be?

Two metres, except in two places, and the airport's pages disagree about one of them. The standard maximum height is 2.00 m, which is what P1 and P20 carry. P51 takes vehicles up to 1.90 m only. Level -3 of P26 takes up to 2.40 m, in designated areas.

The disagreement is over P2. The entry for P2 on the parking access page gives it 2.8 m, while the general height notice on that same page and the airport's FAQ say 2 m everywhere except level -3 of P26, which the FAQ names as the only area for vehicles over 2.00 metres. With a tall vehicle, the airport asks drivers to contact its Parking Control Centre.