Italy: Italian airports (except for Rome Ciampino) off to strong start in 2008

Rome Ciampino doesn’t actually get the thumbs up because of plans to restrict flights.

In the first two months of 2008 passenger traffic at Italy’s commercial airports has grown 7.6% compared with 2007, helped a little by the extra day in February.

Pisa continues to generate the highest growth rates among the leading airports with passenger numbers up over 15%. All of the top 13 airports are reporting growth with the exception of Rome’s Ciampino airport where plans by ENAC to limit the number of daily flights has encouraged Wizz Air to move its Budapest, Cluj-Napoca and Sofia services to Rome Fiumicino while easyJet has dropped its routes from Belfast and East Midlands. Ryanair, which successfully appealed the planned reductions, serves over 20 destinations from the airport.

Smaller airports reporting significant growth in the first two months of the year include Alghero (+19.2%), Cagliari (+20.9%), Forli (+50.9%), Lamezia Terme (+20.7%), Parma (+128.3%), Pescara (+37.5%) and Rimini (+22.8%).

Source: Assaeroporti

Only Olbia lost traffic in 2007

Among the 21 airports with at least one million passengers per annum only Olbia in Sardinia saw traffic fall last year.

Source: Assaeroporti

Florence, Pisa, Alghero and Bari all recorded traffic growth of at least 20%. The two Rome airports both spookily ended up with 9.2% growth while among Milan airports Malpensa grew faster than Bergamo. Milan Linate was the second slowest growing airport reporting growth of just over 2%.