Once again, for the sixth time in the last seven years, Rome’s Fiumicino airport has excelled in Aci Europe's ranking of Europe's best airports with over 40 million passengers. It also won the Digital Transformation Award for its commitment to digitization and the promotion of innovation, offering an airport experience of increasing quality to travellers.
This is just the latest ace up the sleeve of Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport as it is poised to become the new hub of the Lufthansa Group, following the green light from the EU to the merger between the German airline and ITA Airways. And what a dowry ITA brings with it! This is a gem of an airport that - like the airline itself - is capable of providing an elite service in Italy and beyond.
Indeed Fiumicino's success has played a significant role in Lufthansa's plans for the future merger. After the fire that destroyed Terminal 3 in 2015, the airport was restructured, upgraded, and relaunched, going on to position itself with growing regularity at the top of the list of Europe's best airports.Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa, remarked on this following the EU's approval. “Rome is ideally placed to become the company's sixth, new hub: a thousand kilometres south of Frankfurt and 700 kilometres further down than our southernmost hub, which is Zurich.” Coordinates that make the Roman airport “ideal for all connections that look to the south of the world, particularly to Latin America and Africa, but also to the USA.”
Lufthansa’s CEO also stressed that Fiumicino is “a five-star airport: flying here was certainly one of the positive aspects of this operation (...) Fiumicino has a premium terminal with attractive operating costs and the possibility of economies of scale. Given Rome’s nature as a tourist destination, this will increase the offer of seats for high-end customers travelling in Business and First class.” Now all Leonardo da Vinci has to do, is to set out on a new, thrilling path of growth.
Mariella Cattaneo
Journalist
