After several difficult years for the Italian travel sector, tourists are back with a vengeance according to the latest data from Italy’s airport managers’ association, Assaeroporti.

The figures showed a record 192.7 million people arrived at Italian airports last year – a 2.1 percent increase on the pre-pandemic numbers recorded in 2019, the association said.

This signals the end of “the hard years of the pandemic”, wrote Assaeroporti in a press release.

It noted that there were more passengers but fewer flights arriving: 1,601,059 in total, which was -2.6 percent on 2019. The association said this was “beneficial in environmental terms”.

Rome’s Fiumicino airport hosted by far the highest proportion of passengers, at 40.5 million, followed by Milan Malpensa (26.1 million), Bergamo (16 million), Naples (12.4 million), and Venice (11.4 million).

Sicily’s Catania airport came in sixth place (10.7 million passengers), followed by Bologna (10 million), Milan Linate (9.4 million), Palermo (8.1 million), and Bari (6.5 million).

Carlo Borgomeo, President of Assaeroporti, commented: “2023 closed with almost 200 million passengers, an absolute record for Italian airports, an important psychological threshold reached.

“2023, however, was also characterised by strong turbulence,” he said, noting “the way in which the issue of high flight prices was managed, the continued postponement of the ITA-Lufthansa deal, as well as the topic of the municipal flight tax, on which great confusion reigns.”