Biarritz Pays Basque (BIQ) Airport Guide 2026 — Two Countries, One Bus Ticket

Last verified: September 2026.

🏢 1. An Airport In The Middle Of Three Towns

Most regional airports are built out in the fields. Biarritz is not. The runway sits on the plateau de Parme, land bought by the department in 1922, and the Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz conurbation has since grown around it. The terminal, the control tower, the Dassault Aviation hangar and the flying clubs are all on Anglet ground; only the western end of the runway is in Biarritz. The postal address is Anglet even though the airport’s name is not.

That geography is the airport’s single biggest asset and it is why the transport section of this guide is short and cheerful: you can be in the middle of Biarritz five minutes after walking out, and in Bayonne in fifteen.

The runway is 2,250 m on 09/27, tarmac, with ILS Cat I. It cannot be lengthened much — the land-take caps it at about 2,500 m — and since the airport’s role is short and medium haul, no extension is planned. The current terminal was completed in 1994, with the first stone laid in April 1992, and it was refurbished around the runway rebuild of 2019, which took over a year and included a month of total closure. Its rated capacity is about 1.4 million passengers a year.

The airport belongs to and is run directly by a syndicat mixte, which has owned the aerodrome outright since 1 January 2007. Since 2022 its members are the Communauté d’agglomération Pays Basque (31.25%), the Département des Pyrénées-Atlantiques (31.25%) and the Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine (25%) — the Landes department withdrew that year, giving up 12.5%.

The numbers, and the recovery that has not happened

935,404 passengers in 2025, on 25,410 aircraft movements. That is up on 2024’s 917,541 — but it is below 2023’s 970,589, below 2019’s 1,066,204, and well below the 1,190,991 record set in 2017. Biarritz is one of the French airports that has not got back to where it was, and the schedule reflects a market that is broad but thin: lots of routes, not many frequencies on most of them.

The 2023 breakdown is the most detailed the airport has published: 694,254 domestic passengers against 275,734 international, across 22 scheduled routes flown by ten airlines, with low-cost carriers accounting for 62% of commercial flights. Market share that year ran Air France 34%, Transavia France 34%, Ryanair 20%, Volotea 3%, and 4% shared between Edelweiss, Lufthansa, Luxair, SAS and Swiss. Read that twice: this is a domestic airport with an international fringe, which is the opposite of Béziers or Bergerac, and it is why the passport queue here is a minority event.

The summer 2026 programme

Eleven airlines, from the airport’s own published programme for 28 March to 24 October 2026:

The year-round core is six routes: Paris CDG, Paris Orly, Lyon, London Stansted, Brussels Charleroi and Marrakech. Everything else, including all the German, Swiss, Dutch and Scandinavian flying, is a summer overlay. If you are buying a house here on the strength of a Zurich flight, check the calendar.

Opening hours, and a wrinkle worth knowing

The airport’s headline hours are 05:30 to 22:30, every day. But its own traveller-information page publishes something more specific and more awkward: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday 05:30–22:30; Tuesday and Thursday 05:30–15:30 and 20:00–22:30; Saturday 05:30–15:30 and 21:00–22:30. In other words the terminal shuts in the middle of some afternoons. The two pages of the same website disagree, so if you have a long gap before an evening flight, check before you plan to sit it out in the departure hall — and see section 4, because there is nowhere to sit it out anyway.

The baggage service (lost and damaged luggage) is open 08:30 to 14:30 daily. Claims go online for Air France, KLM, Transavia, easyJet, Swiss, SAS and Lufthansa, but in person at the airport for Ryanair, Luxair, Edelweiss and Volotea — which is a problem if your Ryanair bag goes missing on a 21:00 arrival.

Two baggage rules specific to this airport

This is a surf and golf destination, so oversize bags matter more here than almost anywhere else in France.

• Every bicycle must be packed in a bike box. Not a bag, not a wrap — the airport states plainly that at Biarritz all bicycles must be boxed, and that the shop can supply the boxes.
• Oversize items — bikes, golf bags, surfboards, pushchairs — go to the “Hors Format” desk after check-in, need your airline’s prior agreement, and may carry a specific charge. Sort it with the airline before you get to the terminal, not at the desk.
• There are no left-luggage lockers, for security reasons. There is nowhere to leave a board for the afternoon.

Allowances differ sharply between the eleven carriers here — compare them with the aifly baggage checker before you book, and see our Ryanair baggage guide if you are flying the Stansted or Dublin route.

🛂 2. Schengen, the Euro, and the Border You Will Not Notice

France is a founding Schengen state and uses the euro. So does Spain, twenty-odd minutes down the coast, which removes the single most common worry people bring to this airport.

Only five of the destinations here cross the external Schengen border: London Gatwick, London Stansted, Edinburgh, Dublin — Ireland is in the EU but not in Schengen — and Marrakech. Everything else is either a domestic French flight or an internal Schengen one. Set against a schedule that is roughly two-thirds domestic by passenger numbers, that makes the passport hall a small part of the day here, in sharp contrast to the British-dominated regional airports further north.

EES has been fully operational across the Schengen area since 10 April 2026. It replaces the passport stamp with a digital record — travel document, fingerprints and a facial image, and the date and place of every entry and exit — with overstays calculated automatically. The first crossing after enrolment is the slow one, because that is when the biometrics are taken; after that you are matched against an existing file and it is quicker. If you are arriving from London or Dublin in August, allow for it; if you are arriving from Paris, it does not touch you.

The part people get wrong: crossing into Spain is not a border event. France and Spain are both in Schengen, so the land crossing at Hendaye/Irun is internal. There is no routine passport control, EES does not apply, and the Euskotren train described in the next section simply runs across. Carry your ID card or passport because you are legally required to be able to identify yourself, and because you will need it to fly home — not because anyone is going to check it on the train.

ETIAS is not in operation. No applications are being collected and no launch date is published. The fee has been fixed at €20 by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1411, with exemptions for applicants under 18 or over 70 and for family members of EU citizens. Nobody can sell you a valid ETIAS today, because there is nothing to sell.

🚌 3. Txik Txak, the €1.40 Ticket and the €6.50 Euskopass

Biarritz has the best public transport of any small airport in the French south-west, and it is not close.

The airport has a proper bus station, not a shelter: a covered waiting area with direct access into the terminal, six bus bays, a ticket machine for Txik Txak tickets, step-free access, and it takes full-size coaches as well as town buses.

Txik Txak is the network of the Communauté d’agglomération Pays Basque, and the airport names three urban lines:

Read the operating patterns, because they are the trap. Line 8 does not run at weekends and stops at 20:30. Line 11 does not run on Sundays and stops at 21:29. Only line 3 runs seven days a week and late — until 23:34 — which is also, conveniently, the line that reaches both Bayonne station and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. For Hendaye, the airport’s instruction is: take line 3 to Saint-Jean-de-Luz and change to line 4.

The fares are the best part

Children under six travel free, and a family of four can cross a border and come back for €26. That is the sentence to take away from this guide.

Getting to Spain, honestly

The verified public-transport chain is: Txik Txak to Hendaye — line 3 to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, then line 4 — and the Euskotren Topo from Hendaye station into San Sebastián, all covered by the €6.50 Euskopass return. That is Txik Txak’s own description of the product, and Euskotren’s own network confirms Hendaia and Donostia-San Sebastián as stations on it.

Separately, the airport names Alsa/Conda, BlaBlaCar Bus and Flixbus as operators running to San Sebastián, Bilbao and Pamplona, and points at Paris ⇄ San Sebastián and Toulouse ⇄ San Sebastián services. Check the departure point with the operator before you count on it — the airport lists them as available options in the area rather than as services calling at its own stand, and the two are not the same thing.

For the Landes coast — Labenne, Capbreton, Hossegor, Seignosse, Moliets — and for Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Dax, the departure point is Bayonne SNCF station, not the airport. Take line 3 first.

Parking: seven car parks, and the free-minutes trap

Every car park is bookable online, all are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the airport reads number plates at the barriers.

Three rules that catch people:

1. The free minutes are capped at two entries per day across P1, P2 and Kiss & Fly combined. Two school-run drops and the third one is chargeable.
2. After you pay at the automatic tills in the terminal you have 15 minutes to reach the exit barrier at P1, P2 Confort and P4 Premium, and 20 minutes at Kiss & Fly and P3 Longue durée.
3. Bookings run for a minimum of eight hours, can be made up to four hours ahead, let you in from two hours early and out up to an hour late — and any exit is final. Free cancellation up to 30 minutes before.

🛋️ 4. Two Shops Landside, Two Airside, and No Lounge

Biarritz has no passenger lounge. The airport’s own list of terminal facilities runs to four retail and catering outlets and nothing resembling a lounge, so a Priority Pass gets you nothing here.

What there is:

• Landside: the Belharra restaurant and a Relay. The restaurant has a terrace, which in this climate is the right place to be.
• Airside: the Bidaïa Bar and a second Relay. Sandwiches, drinks, press, tobacco, confectionery and travel accessories.
• The shops are worth ten minutes on the way out rather than being airport tat: the range is genuinely regional — Basque food, Basque linen, homeware and accessories alongside the perfume and books.
• One cash machine, at arrivals level. A letterbox outside the terminal. An infirmary, next to the information desk.
• No left-luggage lockers, for security reasons.

The practical upshot, given the split opening hours described in section 1: do not build a long airside wait into your plan. Eat in Biarritz or Anglet — you are fifteen minutes and €1.40 away from doing much better — and come to the airport to fly.

🍽️ 5. Espelette, Bayonne Ham, and Pintxos Across the Border

The Basque coast is one of the great eating regions of Europe and the airport sits in the middle of it. The airport’s own regional guide names the short list, and it is the right one:

• Piment d’Espelette. The dried red pepper strung on the house fronts at Espelette, half an hour inland. It is the seasoning that makes Basque food taste Basque, and it comes home in a jar with no liquids problem.
• Jambon de Bayonne. Air-dried and rubbed with Espelette pepper. Buy it in Bayonne, sliced, and eat it before you get on the plane.
• Gâteau basque. Shortcrust filled with either pastry cream or black cherry jam, and the choice between the two is a live argument. Both versions are correct; do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
• From the Landes, just north: magret, foie gras, asparagus and — surprisingly — kiwi fruit, which grows commercially in the Adour valley.
• Pintxos in San Sebastián. Twenty minutes by train from Hendaye, and a different food culture from the one on the French side: small plates on the bar, paid for as you go, standing up, and you move to the next place after two. It is the single best reason to buy the €6.50 Euskopass.

Markets: the covered halles in Bayonne and Biarritz are where all of the above is sold properly, and both are on a bus route from the airport.

💡 6. Insider: Surf, Ham and a Second Country

Fly here when

• You are surfing. The airport’s own line is that the coast from Hossegor in the Landes to Mundaka in Spain — through Anglet and Biarritz — gives more than 30 kilometres of surfable water, and Biarritz has held a three-star “Ville de Surf” label since June 2016. This is the European surf capital and the airport is inside it.
• You want two countries on one trip. A €6.50 return ticket to San Sebastián makes this the cheapest cross-border day trip in France.
• You need Paris. Two Paris routes, from two different airports, all year, several times a day between them. That is rare at this size.

Fly somewhere else when

• It is winter and your route is not one of the six year-round ones. Six routes run all year: Paris CDG, Paris Orly, Lyon, London Stansted, Brussels Charleroi and Marrakech. Everything else stops. Run the alternatives — Bordeaux, Pau, Bilbao and San Sebastián are all in range — through the aifly price check before assuming.
• You are connecting. Eleven airlines, but no hub function. Every itinerary here is point to point.
• You need to leave a bag somewhere. No lockers, and the terminal shuts mid-afternoon on some days.

What is out there

• Biarritz. The city’s own list of its beaches runs Miramar, la Grande Plage, le Port-Vieux, la Côte des Basques, Marbella and la Milady — six, in a town you can walk across. The Côte des Basques is the surf beach and the one with the view down the coast to Spain; the Grande Plage is the Second Empire one, in front of the old casino.
• Bayonne, fifteen minutes on line 3. The real city of the three — a fortified old town on two rivers, the Gothic cathedral, the ham, and a chocolate tradition brought by Jewish and Portuguese refugees in the 16th and 17th centuries that is still the best in France.
• Anglet, between the two, which is where the beaches actually are: a long run of open Atlantic sand and the reason the surf schools are based there rather than in Biarritz.
• Saint-Jean-de-Luz, twenty minutes down the coast and directly on line 3. A sheltered bay — the only genuinely safe swimming beach of the four — a working fishing port, and the church where Louis XIV married the Spanish Infanta.
• Espelette and the inland villages. Half an hour inland, white houses with red or green shutters, peppers drying on the walls in autumn. You need a car for these.
• San Sebastián / Donostia. The Concha bay, the old town, and more Michelin stars per head than almost anywhere on earth. Twenty minutes from Hendaye on the Topo, and Hendaye is the end of Txik Txak line 4.
• Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the last French stop on the Camino before the Pyrenees, reached by train from Bayonne station.

Practical odds and ends

• Line 3 is the useful one. Every day, until 23:34, every 15 minutes, and it reaches Bayonne station and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Lines 8 and 11 do not run on Sundays.
• Tap in with a contactless card rather than buying tickets — same €1.40, up to five people, and a €3.80 daily cap per person.
• Box the bike. All bicycles must be in a bike box at this airport, and the shop sells them.
• Sort surfboards and golf bags with the airline first. They go to the Hors Format desk after check-in and may be charged.
• Free parking minutes are capped at two entries a day, and the free window at Kiss & Fly is seven minutes, not twelve.
• Ryanair, Luxair, Edelweiss and Volotea baggage claims must be made in person — and the baggage desk shuts at 14:30.
• Roaming: EU and EEA plans work on both sides of the Spanish border with no action. UK and Moroccan plans do not.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

📊 2026 Summary Data Table