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Régis Lacote

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Régis Lacote
BornApril 25, 1972 (age 54)
NationalityFrench
EducationESIEE; École nationale de l'aviation civile (Advanced Master, airport management, 1997)
OccupationAirport executive
CompanyGroupe ADP
TitleDeputy chief executive officer in charge of operations and innovation; director of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport

Régis Lacote (born April 25, 1972) is a French airport executive. He has worked for Groupe ADP, the operator of the Paris airports, since 2002. He became director of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport on November 14, 2022, and on March 14, 2025 he was also appointed one of the group's deputy chief executives (directeur général adjoint), in charge of operations and innovation.[1][2]

Lacote trained as an engineer at ESIEE and took an Advanced Master's degree in airport management at the École nationale de l'aviation civile (ENAC) in 1997. He started his career in 1998 at Roland Garros Airport on Réunion, where he ran the operations control centre and was responsible for security, and joined Aéroports de Paris through its graduate programme in June 2002.[1][3]

Over the following 16 years he held operational posts at both Paris airports, including head of ground handling services at Charles de Gaulle, head of operations for Terminals 2E, 2F and 2G, director of airport operations at Orly and director of the aeronautical areas at Charles de Gaulle. He was director of Paris-Orly Airport from February 2018 to November 2020, a period that included the airport's closure to commercial traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic. He then spent two years in India as chief operating officer of GMR Airports before returning to Paris to run Charles de Gaulle.[1][4]

Since the 2025 reorganisation of Groupe ADP's internal governance under chairman and chief executive Philippe Pascal, Lacote has headed an operations and innovation division that groups the management of Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Le Bourget, Paris-Orly, the group's operations directorate and its innovation directorate. He sits on the group's executive committee and its general management committee.[2][5] In November 2025 he was appointed to the board of GMR Airports Limited.[6]

Early life and education

Groupe ADP gives Lacote's date of birth as April 25, 1972.[1] Published sources do not describe his family background or where he grew up.

He graduated from ESIEE, a French engineering school. Groupe ADP's biography and the press notices of his appointments refer to it simply as ESIEE; the Acteurs Publics report of his 2018 appointment names ESIEE Paris, while the ENAC alumni association describes him as a graduate engineer of ESIEE Amiens.[1][7][3] He then studied at the École nationale de l'aviation civile in Toulouse, where he completed an Advanced Master's degree (Mastère spécialisé) in airport management in 1997. The alumni association lists him under the class designation "MS AM 1997".[3] ENAC includes him on its list of notable alumni.[8]

Career

Roland Garros Airport, Réunion (1998 to 2002)

Lacote began his working life in 1998 at Roland Garros Airport, the main airport of the French overseas department of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. According to Groupe ADP he held two functions there: head of the operations command post (responsable du PC Exploitation) and head of security (responsable Sûreté).[1] The local Val-de-Marne news site 94 Citoyens, reporting his appointment to Orly in 2018, noted that it was on Réunion that the new head of Orly had started out.[9]

Operational roles at Aéroports de Paris (2002 to 2018)

In June 2002 Lacote joined the graduate programme of Groupe ADP, then known as Aéroports de Paris.[1][7] The ENAC alumni association summarised his first years there as several management positions within the company's ground handling division, followed by general management roles in various departments at Charles de Gaulle and Orly.[3]

The company's own record of his posts, repeated in each of its appointment announcements, is as follows:[1][10]

  • 2005 to 2008: head of the ground handling service (service d'assistance en escale) at Paris-Charles de Gaulle.
  • 2008 to 2010: head of operations for Terminals 2E, 2F and 2G at Charles de Gaulle. 94 Citoyens and Acteurs Publics add that this role also covered the airport's TGV high-speed railway station.[9][7]
  • 2010 to 2011: director of airport operations at Paris-Orly.
  • 2012 to 2018: director of the aeronautical areas (directeur des aires aéronautiques) at Paris-Charles de Gaulle.

The press reports of 2018 give one further step between the Orly and airfield posts: from 2011 to 2012 he was head of the "aviation operations" domain within the aeronautical areas directorate at Charles de Gaulle, before becoming its director in 2012.[9][7]

Director of Paris-Orly Airport (2018 to 2020)

On February 23, 2018, Groupe ADP chairman and chief executive Augustin de Romanet announced six senior appointments, among them Lacote as director of Paris-Orly Airport and a member of the group's executive committee.[11] He was 45 at the time. He succeeded Marc Houalla, who had been named deputy chief executive and director of Paris-Charles de Gaulle earlier that month; Houalla had himself succeeded Franck Mereyde at Orly after Mereyde became deputy chief executive of TAV Airports on September 1, 2017.[9][7] Groupe ADP dates the start of his Orly directorship to February 2018.[4]

The defining event of his time at Orly was the COVID-19 pandemic. Commercial flights at Orly were suspended from March 31, 2020.[12] In early May 2020 nine airlines based at the airport, including Air Caraïbes, Air Corsica, Corsair, French bee and Transavia France, wrote an open letter asking for a firm reopening date of June 26, 2020. According to Air Journal, the airlines said that ADP, whose chairman de Romanet and Orly director Lacote had received their correspondence, had told them that the closure until the end of June still stood and that the situation would be reassessed at the end of May. A spokesperson for the group said it shared the wish to reopen Orly as early as possible, but that reopening was only conceivable with good visibility on a significant number of flights.[13]

On May 28, 2020, Groupe ADP announced that commercial flights could resume at Orly from June 26. The group said the reopening would be gradual, beginning with the Orly 3 area, and would be accompanied by compulsory mask wearing, physical distancing signage, hand gel dispensers, security screening procedures adapted to limit physical contact, and thermal cameras at arrivals.[12] Orly reopened on June 26, 2020 after about three months of closure, with roughly 70 flights expected on the first day against some 600 across the airport in normal times.[14] The published coverage attributes these decisions to the group rather than to Lacote personally.

Chief operating officer of GMR Airports (2020 to 2022)

On October 6, 2020, Groupe ADP announced that Lacote would become chief operating officer of GMR Airports in India from November 16, 2020, in agreement with the chairman of GMR Airports. In the same round of appointments Antoine Crombez, previously chief of staff to de Romanet, was named deputy chief executive of GMR Airports from October 15, 2020. Lacote was succeeded at Orly by Justine Coutard, a former finance inspector, who took up the post on October 26, 2020.[4]

The ENAC alumni association described Lacote in this period as "Global COO of GMR Airports Limited". While in India he became the patron (parrain, rendered in English as "godfather") of the association's newly formed India chapter.[3]

Director of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (2022 to present)

Lacote took up the post of director of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport on November 14, 2022, succeeding Marc Houalla. The appointment, made by de Romanet, was announced on December 5, 2022, and brought him back onto the Groupe ADP executive committee.[10][15]

His first two years at Charles de Gaulle included preparations for the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris. In August 2024 Groupe ADP's newsletter Connexions reported that Douglas Webster, chief operations officer of Los Angeles International Airport, had spent five days studying the arrangements Groupe ADP had put in place for athletes and delegations ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Accompanied by Lacote, Webster visited the "Off Airport Process" facilities, including the advance check-in system for athletes' baggage in the Olympic Village, as well as the airport's Baggage Factory and Athlete Special Hall, and met the teams running the Airport Operations Supervision Centre set up for the Games.[16]

Deputy chief executive, operations and innovation (2025 to present)

On March 14, 2025, Philippe Pascal, who had become chairman and chief executive of Groupe ADP, named three deputy chief executives: Loïc Aubouin, Mathieu Daubert and Lacote. Lacote's title became deputy chief executive in charge of operations and innovation, director of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport and member of the executive committee. The appointments accompanied a change in the group's internal governance: a new general management committee was formed, made up of the chairman and chief executive, the deputy managing director Justine Coutard, deputy chief executive Christelle de Robillard and the three new deputy chief executives, and the directorates represented on the executive committee were divided among them.[2][17]

The operations and innovation division placed under Lacote brought together the management of Paris-CDG and Paris-Le Bourget, the management of Paris-Orly, the group's directorate-general of operations and its innovation directorate. Under the new arrangement each deputy chief executive also kept the directorates he or she already ran, so Lacote remained director of Charles de Gaulle.[2] Pascal said the aim was to make the company's internal governance more agile, to make decision making more fluid, collegial and rapid, and to bring internal cross-cutting issues into line, with priority given to reinvesting in the company's core business and building a stronger corporate culture.[2]

As of July 2026, Groupe ADP's corporate governance pages listed Lacote as deputy chief executive in charge of operations and innovation and director of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, with the Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget, Orly, operations and innovation directorates under his authority.[5]

Board memberships and outside roles

GMR Airports Limited appointed Lacote a non-executive director (additional director), effective November 13, 2025, as one of six new board members who also included his Groupe ADP colleagues Christelle de Robillard and Mathieu Daubert. The same report states that he also sits on the executive committees of Hologarde and CCS France.[6]

He has been a member of the Groupe ADP executive committee as director of Orly from 2018 to 2020, and again since his appointment to Charles de Gaulle in November 2022.[11][10]

Recognition

Lacote is a Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre national du Mérite.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 <ref>"Régis Lacote, Directeur de l'aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle".Groupe ADP.January 21, 2023.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 <ref>"Nominations au sein du Groupe ADP et évolution de la gouvernance interne".Groupe ADP.March 14, 2025.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 <ref>"News".ENAC Alumni.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 <ref>"Justine Coutard nommée directrice de l'aéroport Paris-Orly".October 6, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 <ref>"Régis Lacote, Directeur de l'aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle".Groupe ADP.July 21, 2026.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 <ref>Ajay Katpara."Six New Independent Directors Join GMR Airports".Board Stewardship.November 14, 2025.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 <ref>Shahinez Benabed."ADP recrute un nouveau directeur pour l'aéroport de Paris-Orly".February 26, 2018.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  8. ↑ <ref>"Famous ENAC Alumni".École nationale de l'aviation civile.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 <ref>Cécile Dubois."Régis Lacote nommé directeur de l'aéroport d'Orly".February 22, 2018.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 <ref>"Nomination au sein du Groupe ADP".Groupe ADP.December 5, 2022.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 <ref>"ADP : Henri-Michel Comet nommé directeur général adjoint".February 23, 2018.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 <ref>"Orly reprend les vols commerciaux à partir du 26 juin".May 28, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  13. ↑ <ref>"Orly doit rouvrir le 26 juin, réclament 9 compagnies françaises".May 7, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  14. ↑ <ref>Aurélien Fleurot."Coronavirus : comment Orly se prépare à sa réouverture progressive".June 25, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  15. ↑ <ref>"ADP: un nouveau directeur pour l'aéroport Charles de Gaulle".December 6, 2022.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  16. ↑ <ref>"Connexions No. 208".Groupe ADP.August 20, 2024.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  17. ↑ <ref>"Nominations au sein du Groupe ADP et évolution de la gouvernance interne. Loïc Aubouin, Mathieu Daubert et Régis Lacote sont nommés directeurs généraux adjoints.".Groupe ADP.March 14, 2025.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
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