Low-cost carriers increasingly dominate Italy’s short and medium-haul traffic

Italy has reached a seemingly point-of-no-return in the expansion rate of low-cost carriers, which now offer almost 50% of seats on all scheduled domestic flights and about 46% of seats on international flights. Italian no-frills operators are being worsted by foreign budget airlines despite honest efforts by Alitalia to grow its own LCC, Air One Smart Carrier, with Ryanair taking the lead as the country's largest budget carrier on international as well as domestic routes.

LCCs are now the dominant segment at four of Italy's 10 busiest airports in terms of weekly seat capacity on scheduled short- and medium-haul services, including Milan Malpensa, Milan Bergamo, Palermo and Rome Ciampino. Rome Fiumicino Airport, the country's main international gateway, will also be inundated with low-cost flights temporarily from 24-Sep-2012 through 02-Oct-2012 when Rome Ciampino Airport closes due to essential runway works and consequently all of Wizz Air and Ryanair's operations move to Fiumicino. Ryanair offers about 111,000 seats on approximately 600 weekly frequencies to 48 destinations from Rome's city airport, according to schedules in Innovata.