Please help me with how I can smoothly make my flight from Lyon. The train leaves from Lyon Par Dieu at 6:20 A.M. arriving at CDG 2 TGV. I need to get to United terminal for 1 P.M. flight.

There is an early TGV from Lyon to CDG at 6:20 arriving 8:34. There is another train at 7:56 arriving 10:04.

It is indeed ironic, but if you got bogged down in street traffic you could get to the airport from Lyon as fast as you could from central Paris at 8 AM.

I do not know how difficult lines are to negotiate and board a flight to the USA, but I would take the earlier train.

You did not say which terminal you need. If your departure terminal is T1, you will need to ride the shuttle bus from the TGV station.

If departure is from T2f or T2C, the check-in gates are much closer, but still a considerable walk.

If you have extra time, there is always pastry and coffee at La Brioche Doree.

If your train leaves at 6.20 AM, it will reach CDG 2 around 8.20 AM.
Then it will take you about 20 minutes to get to Terminal 1 (should United depart from Terminal 1).

Then it's fine for a 1 PM flight.

Admitting there are no strikes, no technical problems, no false bomb alert, etc....

UA uses CDG1, but still 8:34 arrival at the CDG2 station means you can get to the UA check-in gate before 9. Most airline's check-in counters don't open until 3 hours prior (i.e. 10am), so you'll have a lot of time waiting.

OOPS I must be going blind. You WILL need to take the shuttle over to T1 for a United flight. I just did not see your full posting because of a distractioin. Sorry.

I think you can make it fine. You could not arrive much earlier if you left from downtown Paris.


The sncf schedule says the train arries at 8:34. If your flight leaves at 1 PM, you have over 4 hours to make your flight.

Three hours should be sufficient to get through security and check your luggage. That gives you 1 and a half hours to get around from terminal to counter.

At that hour of the morning, CDG should be routinely hectic.

Someone else perhaps can tell you exactly where to go to catch the shuttle bus from the TGV terminal.
It is right in the airport complex.

Personally, I wouldn't plan a final travel day like this, but that said, you should be fine as long as there isn't an sncf strike. You need to be at CDG 2.5 hours before the flight, which would be 10:30. If the train arrives at Aérogare 2 at 8:20, that leaves you more than enough time to hop over to terminal 1.

StCirq, why you recommend 2.5 hours before the flight? I thought two hours ahead was sufficient. We too have a 1:00 pm United flight out of CDG for our trip, and I know it's quibbling about a mere half hour, but I'd sooner spend it in Paris than Paris' airport.

On my last two trips through CDG (October and last week), 2.5 hours was barely adequate to negotiate the immense lines, security, extra checks, roped-off corridors, construction work, and just general confusion. I used to routinely show up an hour and a half before the flight - not any more.

Thanks, StCirq, that makes perfectly good sense to me. I'm still not used to the amount of time it takes to get through security these days and I tend to forget about alloting that extra necessary time.

In my several trips through CDG, there is rarely anything that is orderly. There is always some "crap" going on that disrupts normal progress.

I know once I allowed ample time to change flights. I looked up toward my gate's boarding area, and everybody was going to the transport vehicle. There was never an announcement, no notification at all. Somebody just opened the door and everybody got on the bus.

So at CDG allow for chaos. There is rarely order. I think order is defined as the absence of chaos, and believe me, the absence of chaos is the function of a random variable. It can resume at any time and continue indefinitely.
It might be a strike by the sanitation workers who leave garbage containers as barriers in the corridors, it might be a sudden shutting down of customs while flighs are boarding, it might be construction work on the traffic approach ramps that prevents buses and taxis from getting to the terminal buildings.
You name, at CDG you learn to expect it and allow for it. By other standards, haphazard is the norm at CDG.

I never figure I have the flight made until I am in my seat, the doors are closed and the aircraft is moving along the tarmac for takeoff.

About 6 yrs. ago we took the early TGV from Lyon to CDG, where we got on a flight much earlier than yours, to LGW, and then aother BA flight to PIT. Of course, that was before the added security, and I probably wouldn't cut it that close today. It seems to me that, as others have said, you will be fine. It makes for a long day, though, but the travel day always is!