Marseille Airport Transfer — MRS

A Marseille airport transfer takes you from Marignane, where the airport actually sits, to wherever in Provence you are going — which is frequently not Marseille. The airport has two terminals with entirely separate check-in and boarding, and the thing to get right before anything else is which one your flight uses.

Airport pick-ups include 60 minutes of complimentary waiting time, counted from your booked pickup time.

• IATA code — MRS
• Location — Marignane, roughly 25 km north-west of Marseille
• Terminals — two, connected only landside by a free shuttle
• Drop-off — first 8 minutes free, charged after
• Bus to Marseille Saint-Charles — about 25 minutes, longer at peak
• Bus to Aix-en-Provence — about 30 minutes, every 15 minutes

Two terminals that do not connect airside

Terminal 1 handles the legacy carriers and most international flights. Terminal 2 is the low-cost terminal. A free shuttle links the two buildings, but check-in and boarding areas are completely separate — you cannot walk between them once you are through security.

• Terminal 1 — legacy and most international carriers, taxi rank in front of the terminal.
• Terminal 2 — low-cost carriers; for a taxi, use the Terminal 1 rank.
• Between them — a free shuttle, landside only. The airport bus stop sits between the two terminals.

Check your terminal on the booking confirmation before you leave, not on arrival. Going to the wrong one is recoverable, but it costs the shuttle ride and the queue at the right terminal, and at Terminal 2 in summer the queue is not short.

The airport has also been under construction, so allow more margin for check-in than the terminal's size suggests. This is not a large airport, but it is currently a disrupted one.

Where your driver meets you

If you ask for a name board, each offer shows whether the driver will meet you with one inside the terminal, in the public arrivals hall; if not, you agree a pick-up point with the driver. That hall is where the drop-off zones, the shuttle stops and the car park entrances all meet, so it is where anyone collecting a passenger waits.

Tell us your terminal when you book. It is the single most useful thing on a Marseille booking, because the two buildings have separate arrival halls and a driver in the wrong one is a ten-minute problem rather than a thirty-second one.

Your driver comes for the pickup time you booked; if your flight is delayed, message your driver in the LocalsRide chat.

Drop-off and pick-up

The express drop-off is free for the first eight minutes and charged after that — more generous at the short end than the London airports, which start charging from the moment you enter.

Eight minutes is enough for a departure and rarely enough for an arrival. If you are collecting someone, use one of the short-stay car parks rather than the express zone, and they are more generous than the kerb: PA and PB Minute at Terminal 1 give 20 free minutes, and P2 Minute at Terminal 2 gives 15. One limit worth knowing: that rate covers two passages per vehicle per day, and from the third passage the car park charges a €50 flat rate. The eight free minutes at the kerb will be gone before an arriving passenger has reached the belt, and you have no way of knowing from there how the border queue is running.

Note that the nearby railway station, Vitrolles-Aéroport-Marseille-Provence, applies its own €1 flat fee to its drop-off area. It is a separate facility with separate rules, five minutes away by shuttle bus.

Getting to Marseille and Aix

Both cities have a direct bus, and both are genuinely good. The comparison is not about whether public transport works here — it does — but about luggage, group size and the hour.

• Marseille Saint-Charles — direct airport bus from the stop between the two terminals, about 25 minutes and up to 50 at peak, around €10. Every 10 minutes from 07:00 to 20:00 and every 20 minutes outside that, with the first departure from the airport around 04:05.
• Aix-en-Provence — direct bus to the coach station, calling at Aix TGV, about 30 minutes, every 15 minutes all week.
• Regional rail — free shuttle to Vitrolles-Aéroport station, about 5 minutes, then TER. Reaches regional towns the direct buses do not.
• Taxi — official rank in front of Terminal 1, around the clock, traffic dependent. Commonly quoted at €50–70 into central Marseille depending on hour, traffic and luggage.

Two things the timetable does not tell you. The Saint-Charles bus takes twenty-five minutes in normal conditions and up to fifty at peak, which on a departure is the difference between comfortable and missed. And the last services run late but not all night — the very late departures operate only from May to October, so a winter arrival after midnight is a different proposition from a summer one.

Aix-en-Provence is not an afterthought

Worth stating plainly, because the airport's name hides it: a large share of arrivals here are not going to Marseille at all.

Aix-en-Provence has its own direct service every fifteen minutes and sits about the same distance from the airport as Marseille does. Beyond it, the airport is the practical gateway to the Luberon, the Alpilles, Arles, Avignon and Saint-Rémy — none of which are served by the Marseille city buses and all of which are ordinary transfer destinations.

The consequence for booking is simple. Give the destination town, not the region. "Provence" covers an area two hours across, and the difference between Cassis and Gordes is an hour and a completely different road.

The road matters as much as the distance. Coastal runs east towards Cassis and La Ciotat use narrow corniche roads that are slow in summer and slower behind a coach. Inland runs north to the Luberon are quick on the motorway and then abruptly not, once you leave it for the village lanes. A destination forty minutes away on a map can be an hour and a quarter in August, and the vehicle matters too — several of the hill villages have entrances a large van cannot use.

Cruise passengers

Marseille is one of the Mediterranean's principal cruise ports, and the airport-to-terminal run is a defined journey with a fixed deadline at the far end.

Two points matter more here than on a normal transfer. The port is large, with several terminals, and a cruise ticket names one — give it at booking rather than saying "the port". And the deadline is the ship, not the traffic, so build genuine margin on embarkation day: the road into the port area is congested on turnaround mornings precisely because everybody else has the same deadline.

When the airport is busy

Marseille's pattern is strongly seasonal and the shoulders are pronounced.

Summer dominates. July and August fill the coast, the Calanques, Cassis and the islands, and the low-cost terminal in particular runs at capacity.

Spring and autumn are the Provence season. Lavender in late June and July, the wine harvest in September, and a steady flow of visitors to the hill towns from April through October. These are the months when transfers head inland rather than to the city.

Winter is quiet in the city and busier than expected westward, with business traffic to Aix and the technology corridor around it holding up through the year.

Early departures are the pressure point in summer, as at any leisure airport: a wave of low-cost flights leaves in the early morning, and transfers at that hour book out well ahead.

Booking a Marseille airport transfer

• Your terminal, T1 or T2. The most important field on this particular booking.
• Flight number, so the driver can confirm your terminal.
• The destination town by name, and the full address. Provence is large and the villages repeat names.
• Passengers and luggage as separate counts — see vehicle classes.
• Cruise terminal number, if you are joining a ship.
• Child seats at booking — see family transfers.

Other French airports we cover include Paris Charles de Gaulle, Paris Orly, Nice and Lyon.

Sources

Checked on 22 September 2026.

• Aéroport Marseille Provence — terminal layout, bus services to Marseille Saint-Charles, published timetables, drop-off arrangements and short-stay car park free periods
• SNCF — Vitrolles-Aéroport-Marseille-Provence station, shuttle connection and drop-off fee
• Métropole Aix-Marseille-Provence — airport shuttle lines to Marseille Saint-Charles and Aix-en-Provence

Timetables, fares and terminal arrangements change, and the airport is undergoing construction work. Confirm current details with the airport before travelling.