It was inaugurated on May 30th as a civil airport (for the second time, actually) and in a month the first regular scheduled flights will land. At the Comiso airport on August 7, the eagerly awaited route to Rome Ciampino by Ryanair makes its debut, with six weekly flights. From 17 September the flight to Brussels will be active twice a week and from 19 September to London, also twice a week. The announcement of the first scheduled flights from the new Ragusa airport was given with great fanfare in June in the presence of the Minister of Infrastructure, Maurizio Lupi, and the President of the Region, Rosario Crocetta.
In fact, Ryanair has signed a 5-year contract with the airport management company, Soaco, and will activate three connections: with these 10 weekly flights, it aims to have 150 passengers within the year, to create 150 jobs and save 13,8 million euros for customers . According to the head of the airline, the agreement with Comiso will not cause any disturbance to the other Sicilian airports. The goal is to increase the number of passengers. According to some sources, the low cost company would have asked for seven million euros to activate the airline routes, but officially the terms of the agreement are not known. No wonder, some airports in Northern Italy have gone bankrupt to pay Ryanair to land its planes on the runways.
State aid? Perhaps, but the Comiso airport lives on aid. It cost around 46 billion, half of which was provided by Brussels. Its staff, already at work since May 30 waiting for scheduled flights in August, will be paid for two years by the Sicily region. To date it has allowed the landing of some private and charter aircraft. The most important flight was that of a "public" aircraft carrying 150 migrants landed in Lampedusa and directed to reception centers in Sicily. According to local news, there are also some flights from Malta, waiting for the Malta-Comiso route to depart, which is also twice a week. Who pays Ryanair is not clear but there is no doubt it is public money. In any case, the airport was inaugurated after a wait that lasted decades and in a difficult situation, therefore a first eagerly awaited step forward has been taken. Too bad the next steps are neither simple nor immediate.
Handing over the coveted airport certificate to the former NATO base in Comiso, Enac's number one, Vito Reggio, the highest Italian aeronautical authority, warned: "it is an airport that is born exposed to all the currents that affect the economy and the airplane transport". It is no mystery that many small Italian airports are destined to close, all those without sufficient traffic volume. Will Comiso be able to reach the minimum quota? Up to now the chronicles and history have not been generous. It is the fourth Sicilian airport, but has not yet seen scheduled flights land. It was inaugurated in 2007, sponsored by the then Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, but the actual launch was blocked amid delays in the works and exhausting negotiations on who should pay for the control tower. Negotiations stalled, until the Sicilian Region has allocated 4,5 million to pay the ENAV flight controllers for two years.
Today, as in 2007, however, Comiso started without connections. Those of Ryanair and other companies with which negotiations are underway are expected in the coming weeks (including AirOne and TunisAir) and there are bets on strong discounts on fares linked to the number of passengers transported. And on the hope of returning to the list of airports of national interest where public investments will be concentrated. But how long? The hitherto deserted Magliocco airport has a double motivation for its existence: a stopover in South-Eastern Sicily and an alternative runway to the congested Catania-Fontanarossa, especially when Etna goes crazy. It is a pity that when the state flight with 150 illegal immigrants arrived from Lampedusa, the airport had already been closed for three and a half hours, given that for the time being the employees of the control tower work from 9 to 19. The runway reopened immediately, and with 100 minutes extraordinary, everything fell into place. A rough calculation made by the airport managers speaks of an extra cost of around 2500 euros.
Better times will come but at the moment Comiso is "a private airport" for ENAC, given that it is managed by a company, Soaco, 35% controlled by the Municipality of Comiso and the rest by Intersac, which belongs to the Catania airport and to a private individual, the Catania publisher Mario Ciancio. Ryanair flights will probably be joined by a weekly charter to Tunisia, and from September an AirOne flight to Malpensa. But still too little to justify the cost of a stopover.
In fact, for many Comiso is the latest addition to the list of useless Italian airports. No airline would ever go to Comiso spontaneously, because passengers eager to pay for their ticket are found, in abundance, in Catania. For a company it would not make economic sense to land in Comiso and leave with a semi-empty plane. Nor would it make sense for passengers to land in an airport with no connections and no direct connections with the territory. Neither buses nor trains nor taxis. The risk is that Comiso is a duplicate of Catania. Moreover, the recent viability of the area allows you to reach many towns in the provinces of Syracuse and Ragusa better from Catania (despite the greater distance), than from Comiso. Ryanair has already filled up flights to Trapani. Started as a duplication of Palermo, the Trapani plant is to all intents and purposes the Sicilian airport of the low cost company which provides numerous routes that do not exist in Palermo and Catania, and has thus managed to significantly increase the number of flights and passengers at the airport. It is a pity that the Province of Trapani no longer knows how to repay the losses of its airport management company and is thinking of introducing a tax so as not to be forced to turn off the taps, and with them the agreement with Ryanair.
Comiso is likely to be the latest in a series of small airports that continue to operate despite everything. Cuneo only has flights that are stolen at Turin airport; in Perugia there is a brand new airport, whose renovation cost over 40 million, which has nothing to offer in comparison with Fiumicino; in Puglia two airports are not enough for the appetites of Foggia and Taranto. In Calabria Crotone should be closed, but there is talk of a new airport in Sibari. Even Verona has reached the brink of crisis due to the great "generosity" shown towards Ryanair. Low cost airlines are paid, rather than paying to use airport services, obviously with taxpayers' money. I also publish the collapse, which comes inexorably after a few years, when the money runs out Ryanair leaves, looking for a new airport.
