“The high-priced flight scandal that has hit Sicilians for some time must find an immediate and effective response”: said the president of the Sicilian Region Renato Schifani, who announced his intention to report the matter to the Antitrust, involving expert lawyers in the sector. “But we also need more attention from the government – he adds -. It is unacceptable that undermining citizens’ right to mobility is a company with totally public capital like Ita, engaged in a cartel with Ryanair on the Palermo-Rome route as they are the only carriers to operate on that route”.
In fact, flying from Palermo to Paris or Barcelona costs less than taking a plane to Rome. By doing some simulations, the Ansa agency reports that it is advisable to detach the Palermo-Paris ticket with a stopover in Rome and get off in the capital. A traveler who wanted to go to Rome on December 10 and return the same day, with Ita, without luggage would pay 428 euros. To go to Bologna during the Christmas period, the flight with Ita costs 750 euros.
The cost of flights is a theme that comes up periodically for Sicilians “I’m going back to asking the government to make itself heard, and in particular to the Mef, to which we have also raised other urgent issues for some time on which we have not yet received answers”. adds the president of the Region, who spoke on the phone directly with the minister for companies and made in Italy Adolfo Urso: «I asked the minister to be able to intervene on Ita, a company with totally public capital, to eliminate the scandal of the expensive flights that is shamefully penalizing connections to and from Sicily with the continent. The expensive ticket these days is clearly the result of a cartel that Ita cannot and must not join. It cannot be accepted that citizens’ right to mobility is so seriously harmed”.
Urso accepted the governor’s solicitation by taking an “active part” because he shares what Schifani indicated on the cost of flights, “which limits the right to mobility, slows down tourism development, increases costs for businesses and in any case also fuels the inflationary spiral ».
The Sicilian deputies of the Democratic Party presented a question in response filed in the commission to the Minister of European Affairs, the South and Pnrr Raffaele Fitto and to the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini asking “what initiatives the government intends to take, with the utmost urgency , to promote a meeting with the airlines in order to bring ticket costs back to levels of congruity and accessibility for all, guaranteeing the right to the “reachability” of Sicily”.