Fvg airport, 60 thousand passengers are missing

UDINE. About 60,000 passengers were lost between January and March 2022, due to Omicron and the Russia-Ukraine war.

But the top management of Trieste Airport, first and foremost CEO Marco Consalvo, aims to recover them all by the end of the year, as long as no other unforeseen events arrive to make the air transport road winding that, for two years now, has known an unprecedented crisis. The regional airport’s budget for 2022 had the objective of returning to the pre-Covid passenger share, well before the competing airports of Venice, Verona and Treviso, which postponed the target to 2023.

«Internal flights and summer traffic will allow us to go upstream, despite all the obstacles – says Consalvo -, we hope to recover the 60,000 transits that did not occur in this period.

A part of our potential users, that is made up of residents in Friuli Venezia Giulia, goes to Venice or Treviso because there are more destinations, we must increase the offer of flights to retain as many potential travelers.

The flows from Slovenia and Carinthia, on the other hand, satisfy us: from Ljubljana, for example, there are no connections with southern Italy, with the capitals of the Mediterranean and therefore many Slovenians choose our stopover ».

The ongoing war in Ukraine, however, complicates predictions even more.

«At the moment there are no major negative effects for us – adds the CEO -, even the fuel price increases do not matter for now because companies buy with old contracts and luckily there is no effect on tickets. The ban on flying over Russia by Western companies, I am thinking of British, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, Finnair, makes it difficult to reach the Far East, from Japan to Korea, from China to Thailand, much longer routes are made, at least 3 hours , and with increased costs.

We were very close to closing a connection with Moscow, now it is permanently shelved. Kiev, Odessa, Minsk are good markets for Italy, from there there will be a shortage of customers for cruises. However, as a result of the war, airlines focus on a more restricted and traditional market and have a low risk appetite. Finally, there is the general impact on the economy: if people have less money in their pockets, because of the countless increases, they don’t travel.

War is such a complicated variant that it is difficult to predict. It is clear that if the conflict continues even without dramatic escalations, in any case it will generate a wave of economic crisis that will not be trivial ».

However, Trieste Airport looks to the future with confidence, despite everything. «Internal flights are going well, Naples is excellent, and Ita Airways (formerly Alitalia), from the end of April, will return to connect Friuli Venezia Giulia with Rome three times. The third flight was missing from March 2020, from before Covid – observes Consalvo -. Alitalia will operate with larger aircraft and change timetables. Departures from Ronchi are scheduled at 7, 11.05 and 19.30, while there will be no more take-off at 15.25. From Fiumicino to Ronchi, however, we will leave at 9.10, at 17.40 and at 21.35. On domestic routes we are already better than 2019: on Naples there is Ryanair that makes 5 flights a week, 4 on Catania, 3 on Bari, 2 on Palermo and Cagliari. Boost Stansted with Ryanair 5 times a week, then Brussels, Valencia and Malta with 2 destinations. Trapani from the end of March with Albastar twice a week. In June we will have a connection with Belgrade with Air Serbia 3 times a week, Lufthansa increases for Frankfurt. We postpone the Munich and Linate dossiers to September and October, but they are very important for us, we are counting on returning to full operation ».