More than 50 mln passengers at Fiumicino in 2025. Investments of 9 billion by 2045

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor)- Fiumicino aims to exceed the "iconic" threshold of50 million passengers in 2025, bringing traffic between 51 and 52 million. A growth that goes hand in hand with the investment plan, which continues at a fast pace: in the pipeline there are plans for interventions totalling nine billion between now and 2045. This was explained by Adr's managing director, Marco Troncone, in an interview with Radiocor, in which he emphasised that of these nine billion, "at least five billion will be dedicated to development of the new airport and the rest to maintaining the existing one in full efficiency".

The year went very very well. We continue a year of growth, this year we expect to exceed and even far exceed 50 million passengers, which is also a somewhat iconic threshold for us in terms of traffic. We expect to be between 51 and 52 million passengers. That means appreciable growth compared to 2024, which is not a given because last year we grew at Fiumicino by 22% compared to 2023, which was already a good year. So the moment of great competitiveness for the Rome destination continues, and also the airport's ability to deliver this traffic with great levels of quality. Daily traffic reaches peaks this year of 182 thousand passengers per day, which are important numbers.

The traffic trend is not only quantitatively positive but above all qualitatively in the sense that this traffic is growing especially on the routes that are most important to us, i.e. intercontinental. We are growing by 6-7% on long haul and so we are further consolidating our chosen markets, which are above all North America, and we are still waiting for the great return to growth in the East, i.e. Asia and China, which has not yet fully returned. There is also the hope that goes beyond our business of a normalisation of Russian-Ukrainian flows, which are still important for us.

Yes, this is a strategic and important development that first and foremost brings a result of eliminating a latent and structural crisis state of the old Alitalia. I believe, however, that this will unfold its visible effects in the medium to long term. What we expect is that Ita together with Lufthansa will not only develop more traffic but also use Rome as a transit platform and thus a true southern European hub.

Investments are continuing in an important way. If the airport is functioning well in terms of capacity and also in terms of quality, it is mainly thanks to large investments. We have invested more than three billion euro over the last 10 years. This effort is continuing, this year we will invest almost 400 million euro, but it is also true that we are coming towards the end for what can be done as an increase in capacity. So our vision is focusing on the medium to long term, therefore on the new development master. It will no longer be small investments in capacity increase even though there is still something to be done, but there is a need for discontinuity. So building a new terminal and rearranging the runway system to ensure two major objectives: more capacity and also more sustainability. So not only an infrastructure that will be net zero but also an efficient infrastructure from an acoustic point of view, which in the context of environmental compatibility is at least as important a variable as Co2. For us, these answers are included in the long-term master plan, which in terms of investment as a whole is worth nine billion euros between now and the end of the concession, i.e. until 2045.