Marseille Airport – Marseille Provence Airport (MRS)

Marseille Provence (MRS) is the main airport for the western half of Provence, at Marignane on the Étang de Berre, 25 km north-west of Marseille. It is the fifth busiest in France and the practical arrival point for Aix, Avignon, Arles, the Luberon and the Camargue.

For the Riviera east of Toulon, Nice is the better airport — see Nice airport.

The two terminals

Terminal 1 handles most scheduled traffic. Terminal 2 — the former low-cost terminal, rebuilt — handles Ryanair, easyJet and similar. They are a short walk apart.

Check which one you are flying from: they have separate drop-off points and the walk with luggage is longer than it looks on the map.

Getting out

To Marseille

A shuttle coach runs to Marseille Saint-Charles station in about 25 minutes, every 10–15 minutes through the day. This is the standard route and it drops you at the main railway station, which is also where every onward train leaves from.

There is also a railway station, Vitrolles-Aéroport-Marseille-Provence, connected to the terminals by a free shuttle bus. Trains from there reach Marseille in about 15 minutes and — more usefully — run north towards Avignon and Arles without going into Marseille at all.

To Aix-en-Provence

A direct coach to Aix takes about 30 minutes and is often the better plan: Aix is closer to the airport than Marseille is, it is a pleasanter base, and the coach drops you at the bus station in the centre.

Onward by rail

Aix TGV station is 15 minutes away by coach, and from there the high-speed line reaches Avignon, Nîmes, Montpellier, Lyon and Paris. If your destination is inland or west, this beats going into Marseille.

Taxis

Fixed zone fares are posted. To Marseille it is expensive relative to the shuttle; to Aix it is comparable if there are three of you.

Hiring a car

The desks are between the terminals. Unlike Nice, hiring here usually is the right call: the Luberon, the Alpilles, the Camargue and the lavender plateaux have no useful public transport, and this airport is positioned for exactly those.

Two notes:

• Crit’Air — Marseille and Aix operate low-emission zones and require the windscreen sticker, including on foreign cars. Hire cars have one.
• Do not drive into Marseille if you can avoid it. Take the shuttle in, and collect the car when you leave the city.

See driving in Provence.

Typical journey times from the airport

• Marseille — 25 minutes by shuttle
• Aix-en-Provence — 30 minutes by coach
• Arles — an hour by road
• Avignon — an hour by road, or by train via Vitrolles
• Cassis — 50 minutes
• Salon-de-Provence — 30 minutes
• The Luberon — an hour to Cavaillon, an hour and a half to Gordes
• The Camargue — an hour and a quarter

Practical

• Corsica — the airport has frequent flights to Ajaccio and Bastia, and Marseille port has the overnight ferries.
• The mistral occasionally disrupts landings here; it blows hard across the Étang de Berre.
• Left luggage is available, which makes a day in Marseille possible between flights.
• Arriving late — the shuttle runs until around midnight; after that, taxi only.

See transport in Provence and transport in France.

Image source: Terminal — photo: Georges Seguin (Okki) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Weather in Aéroport de Marseille

Updated: 8 October 2026