Italy aviation: growth driven by ultra-low-cost airlines
Wizz Air's planned expansion in Italy in the forthcoming winter 2025/26 schedule signals the continued importance of the group's biggest market. It ranks third by seats in Italy in the week of 18-Aug-2025, behind Ryanair and easyJet, but has improved from sixth in the equivalent week of 2019.
Italy has outpaced Europe in the post-pandemic capacity recovery. This has been driven largely by low-cost airlines, in particular by the two ultra-LCCs Ryanair and Wizz Air.
Second-ranked easyJet has not grown capacity by very much since 2019, and Alitalia's successor ITA Airways is still smaller than its predecessor as the national flag carrier.
Nevertheless, backed by Lufthansa, ITA is better placed than Alitalia was to steer a path through, and around, low-cost competition.
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