Orio al Serio opens 30 check-in stations. And there's the (long-awaited) date for the new security screening area
The point is this: do they run faster than the expansion of the Bergamo airport terminal or the growth of the [...]
BGY
Italy
The question is this: does it run faster to expand Bergamo Airport's terminal or to grow its passenger traffic? The question arises because Orio al Serio was, during 2024, among the fastest-growing airports year-on-year in Europe Among those with more than 15 million passengers.
In this article:
Sacbo management company invested 41 million euros of its own resources to expand the east side of the terminal with interventions expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
An important part of these interventions was completed in recent hours when it opened a new area dedicated to check-in, with 30 stations including 22 for so-called self-drop and eight traditional, adding to the 34 already present (28 traditional and 6 'self drop'), to a total of 64 locations.
Did you get your flight cancelled, miss your connection, land late?
You could get up to 600€ compensation per person
The 'sore point' at Bergamo's airport, however, remains security controls, which today are totally undersized and insufficient to handle the flow of travelers, especially during peak traffic hours. In fact, it is not uncommon for the queue for checks to go far beyond the properly dedicated area, stretching into the terminal corridors and causing waits of up to 30 minutes.
The 'cap' is expected to be removed, or at least loosened, at the very end of 2025 (the date set for November 26) when a new area dedicated to security checks will be opened, Equipped with the latest generation of radiogenic machines, which is in progress on the floor above the check-in area.
However, the opening of the new check-in area was matched by the expansion of the hold baggage x-ray control system (BHS) for a total of 3,720 sq m added to the ground floor, which should at least partially relieve congestion on the existing infrastructure also in view of the peak summer season. At the same time, the road and pedestrian access to the terminal was upgraded with lengthening and widening of the sidewalk in front of the departure area.
Since the Covid restrictions were lifted, Orio al Serio has experienced meteoric growth. Bergamo's airport had closed its last pre-pandemic year, 2019, with 13,857,257 passengers. It had already returned very close to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, recording 13,155,866 passengers, and then 'spiked' to 15,974,451 in 2023 and to 17,353,753 in 2024, a growth of 8.3% over the previous year; and confirming itself as Italy's third-largest airport after Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa.
