‘Leonardo da Vinci’ Airport closes the year with 40.5 million. New routes to North America; strong recovery for Europe and China.
FIUMICINO – More than 44.4 million passengers travelled through the Rome airports in 2023. Despite the uncertain economic and geopolitical context that market this past year, Rome Fiumicino International Airport welcomed a total of 40.5 million passengers, an increase of 38% compared to 2022. Ciampino “G.B. Pastine” Airport closed the year with 3.9 million passengers. With these record numbers, Fiumicino Airport, the first and only airport in Italy with a Skytrax rating of 5 stars, obtained for its excellent quality of service, thus recovered 93% of flights in relation to the pre-pandemic period, with particular reference to non-European and European components(+76% and +30%).
The positive trend in passenger traffic, which has strengthened since Summer 2023, has enabled us to overcome the uncertainties regarding development prospects that had marked the years of crisis in the industry due to the travel restrictions imposed in almost every country in the world. This positive scenario for the Rome market includes the activation of 45 new flight connections, of which 15 to destinations served by direct flights, together with a schedule involving some 100 airlines flying to 200 routes in over 70 countries, thus connecting the Italian capital with all continents.
The structural recovery of air transport, in addition to connections to Asia (in particular to mainland China, managed by 5 airlines as was the situation pre-pandemic), has mainly involved the North American market (USA, Canada and Mexico), the star destinations in a schedule that – in the peak months – reached up to 34 flights a day at Rome Fiumicino Airport, of which up to 11 to New York alone. This record offer was also guaranteed by the new connections launched by ITA Airways and the developments of the American airlines, which, on an aggregate level, offered up to 50% more connections than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, “Leonardo da Vinci” Airport was ranked third in Europe after London and Paris in terms of the number of flights to the Big Apple and among the fastest growing airports in terms of flights to North America, which, in February 2024, will reach up to 73 per week (+70% compared to February 2019).
The increase in passenger traffic over the last six months of 2023, together with the growing seasonal adjustment of air flows already evident at the start of this year, hints towards record levels for 2024 with a further leap forward compared to 2019. Looking at the immediate future, key elements for the consolidation of the role of Rome Fiumicino airport will be the evolution of ITA Airways with the new destinations planned for Summer 2024 (Chicago, Toronto, Riyadh, Accra, Dakar, Jeddah and Kuwait City), the strengthening of activities by the point-to-point companies (primarily Ryanair and Wizz Air) and the routes being launched on the short and medium haul markets by international airlines such as SunExpress for Izmir, Eurowings for Hannover and Nuremberg, Volotea for Brest and Jet2.com for Edinburgh.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
