Air traffic recovery – the Republic

In the European skies we fly high. Significant, for 2022, the growth in air traffic compared to the previous year. With over 164 million passengersvolume is more than doubled. Good results also for the goods. Cargo, with mail and cargo exceeding 1 million tons, is up by around 2% on 2021. The data is confirmed by the latest report from theEnac. With a side note: although the flows of Italian airports are positive, the passenger sector has not yet recovered the pre-pandemic values. Compared to 2019, a gap of -14% remains in the throat which, although significant, is still better than the -58% of 2021. Enac attributes it to the persistence of restrictive measures still in force at the time. On the other hand, the performance of the cargo sector was stable, which did not suffer the repercussions of the pandemic shock, recording, on the contrary, volumes up by 1% compared to 2019.

Domestic and international flights

Passenger traffic is driven by EU connections, more than doubled compared to 2021 (+41%). The figure, which also exceeds domestic traffic (+39%), rebalances the distribution of flows between domestic flights and European flights in favor of the latter, as before Covid. Apparently, the gap compared to 2019 marks a -29% also due to the Brexit. But three years ago, within the EU, traffic to and from Great Britain was second only to Spain, which held a 19% share. Therefore, re-reading the data net of the Brexit effect, estimated at 13%, the real gap with 2019 would rather be 16% (29-13), i.e. halved, rather than 29%. Basically, in 2022 it was international traffic that showed the highest growth rate: around 100 million passengers marked a +161% on 2021. Domestic traffic, on the other hand, with 64.5 million passengers, recorded an increase minor (+52.9%).

Italian airports

Rome Fiumicino airport is confirmed in first place for passenger traffic (about 29.1 million, equal to 17.7% of the total), with a change of +152%. They follow Milan Malpensa (about 21.2 million passengers, equal to 12.9% of total traffic and a change of +122% compared to 2021), Bergamo Orio al Serio (about 13.1 million passengers, with a share of 8% of total passenger traffic and a change of +103% compared to 2021), Naples Capodichino (approximately 10.9 million passengers, with a 6.6% share of total passenger traffic and a change of +137% compared to 2021), Catania Fontanarossa (approximately 10.1 million passengers, with a 6.1% share of total passenger traffic and a change of +65.0% compared to 2021), and Venice Card (about 9.3 million passengers, with a share of 5.7% of total passenger traffic and a change of +171.7% compared to 2021).

Movements and cargo

The overall movements in 2022 – equal to over 1.2 million (+69% compared to 2021) – show an important recovery of this indicator, even if the 2019 levels have not yet been recovered (-14%). Finally the cargo sector, which in 2022 recorded a total of over 1 million tonnes handled and which, with growth of +2% compared to 2021, is the first sector to achieve the result of recovering pre-pandemic 2019 levels (+1% compared to 2019). The stopover of Milan Malpensa, with approximately 722 thousand tonnes handled (-3.4% compared to 2021) and a market share of 67.1%, continues to confirm its leadership in this sector of activity. The 2022 result of theRome Fiumicino airport which, with around 140,000 tonnes of cargo handled, recorded an important increase of +39.4% compared to 2021, consolidating its second place in the cargo sector ranking.