Air traffic in Italy shows "shy signs of recovery". To say it is the director general of Enac Alessio Quaranta, referring to the first months of 2014 during the presentation of the 2013 report of the institution. Enac's president Vito Riggio also echoes him: “The data for the first quarter of the year confirm a slight recovery, even if inadequate for the relaunch of the system and which should also be valued for psychological reasons and to counter the tendency to describe in terms the trend of the main economic variables is always negative”.
2013, on the other hand, was once again a negative year for the sector in Italy: the number of passengers transported, according to the Enac report, actually dropped by 1,7% on an annual basis, "in a context of severe crisis global economy from which air transport has also been affected”.
There was also a clear decrease, equal to 5,6% on the year, in the "number of movements, with which the airlines have rationalized the load factor of the flights". The domestic routes with the highest number of passengers are Catania-Rome (787.172), Rome-Catania (773.523) and Rome-Linate (719.402). For international routes with EU countries, the first is Fiumicino-Paris Charles De Gaulle with 1,106 million passengers, followed by Fiumicino-Madrid Barajas with 1,010 million and Fiumicino-London Heathrow with 978.580.
For non-EU international routes, however, the first is Rome-New York with 601.526 passengers, followed by Rome-Tel Aviv with 559.112, Malpensa-Dubai with 536.974 and Rome-Dubai with 527.435.
Looking at the airlines, although Alitalia remains the first in number of passengers, the competition from Ryanair is getting stronger: the former national carrier recorded 23,993 million passengers in 2013, down from 25,3 in 2012, while Irish low cost reached 23,041 million from 22,7 in 2012.
