Palermo Airport, a 68 million plan to continue growing

A 68.5 million investment plan for the 2024-2027 period, just over a quarter of the 252 million planned over ten years in the 2023-2033 development plan approved by Enac for Palermo's Falcone-Borsellino airport. Gesap, the Palermo airport's management company, whose CEO is former Enac president Vito Riggio, made official at a public meeting the closure of the construction sites begun in the previous plan (51 million spent instead in the 2020-2023 period) and looks ahead with one eye on upgrading the airport and the other on possible openings to private operators. For Enac president Pierluigi Di Palma, "the credit certainly goes to professor Riggio for having, during his mandate, realised these investments that succeed in restoring quality to passengers at an airport that is growing significantly. Palermo insists on the quality of services and will therefore be able to grow with respect to this ability to combine operational capacity and infrastructural capacity, with significant investments that are almost entirely self-financed'.

Infrastructural interventions that meet Palermo airport's ambition to continue growing: the airport closed 2023 with just over eight million passengers and a growth of 13.8% over the previous year and aims to close 2024 with 8,569.000 passengers, while on the production value front, 2023 closed at 97,277,893 with a 15% increase on the previous year, which was certainly affected by the increase in the non-aviation share (in 2023 it was 18,424,784), which grows as investments and services offered to passengers increase. "We have managed to make up for a delay of at least fifteen years," says Vito Riggio, "Airports need a relevant share of the commercial sector to stand up. In Palermo, this share had thinned out. Now it is there, and it has made the yield jump, leading to a 12 million euro profit. Obviously, we will have to continue, because there are still 250 million in investments to be made, and so it would be very useful if an industrial partner could be found immediately to continue the industrialisation and investment work'.

Among the investments to be undertaken over the next four years is the upgrading and adaptation of airside infrastructure with the construction of facilities for the supply of electricity to aircraft stands. 18.4 million is planned for the second lot of seismic upgrading and passenger terminal renovation works, while 4.2 million will be invested for the new gates in the boarding hall. In the plan there are twenty million for the development of the non-Schengen area. And then there is the historical-naturalistic park by the sea with a path connecting the park with the air terminal.