The eternal Rome-Milan challenge: Fiumicino a record-breaker, but the Lombard capital has higher numbers
The numbers published by Airport Council International (ACI) last week and related to traffic at major European and Italian airports [...]
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The numbers published by Airport Council International (ACI) last week and related to traffic at major European airports and Italians during 2024 rekindled, in comments to the two articles published in TFC, an 'ancient' rivalry between Rome and Milan in terms of 'primacy' in commercial air transport.
In this article:
Or rather, between Rome and Northern Italy, which (except for the decade between 1998 and 2008 when Malpensa became Alitalia's main hub) has always felt 'snubbed' by the Italian national airline. And he feels equally snubbed by ITA Airways., which resulted in Linate an important domestic hub of its own and European, but has at the same time deprived of any Malpensa connection, concentrating all its long-haul activities at Rome Fiumicino.
This is quite normal at the European level, where with the exception of Germany, which has two intercontinental hubs in Frankfurt and Munich, all other airlines have only one hub, including those of large countries such as France, Britain, and Spain: thus, Air France has concentrated all long-haul in Paris, British Airways in London, and Iberia in Madrid.
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'But Milan is Milan,' they say in the North. That is, one of the richest cities in Europe, at the center of a region (Piedmont-Lombardy-Veneto) that is in the top 5 regions with the highest GDP and incomes in Europe. And indeed. Milan, or rather Grande (Grandissima?) Milan is the metropolitan area that boasts the highest traffic volume among those in Italy, including Rome.
Because, putting together the 2024 data of Malpensa (28.9 million passengers), Bergamo Orio Al Serio (17.4 million) and Milan Linate (10.7 million) it comes to exactly 57 million passengers. Rome, for its part, boasts in Fiumicino the busiest airport in Italy with 49.2 million passengers transited in 2024, as well as the eighth overall in Europe and the one among Europe's top 100 airports (with the sole exception of Tirana, which is nonetheless a 'little airport' of just over 10 million passengers) that has grown the most year-on-year, with passenger growth between 2023 and 2024 of 21.3%.
Ciampino adds little, in terms of numbers, since in all last year he put together 3.8 million travelers, which when added to those at Fiumicino brings the Capital's total traffic to 53 million. That is 4 less than the 'Milan system'.
Primacy in absolute terms, which moreover Milan has enjoyed for the past 25 years (and not only in the decade when Malpensa was 'caput mundi') has always been the basis of the claims of Lombards and northerners of the right to have their national airline at home.
Why not to have it undoubtedly means having to make a stopover more frequently, traveling from Milan to other destinations around the world, which requires more time and effort.
However, if we look at the traffic numbers and its growth at Fiumicino, Malpensa and Bergamo (those at Linate 'pay' for some regulatory restrictions on the type of traffic it can operate from the Milanese city airport), the system works. They are all growing and a lot, with Fiumicino where ITA undoubtedly takes the lion's share, Bergamo where Ryanair is 'pushing' and Malpensa which has made competition between carriers and the strong presence of easyJet (which has its largest base there after London Gatwick) its 'growth engines'.
As for whether Malpensa, with the numbers and potential it has, 'should' have its own 'home' carrier, it is worth asking why, even in united Europe, this has never happened. Because the only two airlines to have really tried in the last 17 years have been Lufthansa Italia and Air Italy, the latter lasting just a few months. And no other carriers (entities that do not play by traditional rules like Virgin Atlantic or Norse come to mind) have tried.
