“Paris is worth a mass” is the famous phrase attributed to Henry IV, King of France. When he had to convert to Catholicism, Henry would have spoken it to declare that the opportunity to rule France was worth the sacrifice of conversion. Translated into the present, the question here is: «Is Cuneo-Rome worth a battle?».
The cancellation of the flight after a sudden and unilateral decision by low-cost airline Ryanair took the region by surprise. And it’s as if La Granda realized within hours that their airport had the dignity to be defended. Even if it costs money to set it up. A lot of. Even if it’s a loss. But almost all stopovers are. Even if it’s small. But that’s exactly why it is appreciated by many “foreigners” (apart from the cramped space). Whatever you think of its usefulness, however, it should be remembered that closing an airport is almost easy and reopening it is almost impossible.
“Lack of performance,” argued Ryanair. No one wants you to believe that Cuneo Airport handles hundreds of thousands of passengers. And Ryanair has been working with the people of Cuneo for 15 years, enough to know traffic levels by heart. But the total of 160,000 travelers in 2022 from Cuneo and the 45,000 on the route to Fiumicino are satisfying figures, especially when read in the post-Covid period. If then, as it seems, the Irish company “spoke” to Geac (the airport management company) as early as 2023 without ever mentioning the stop, perhaps we need to look at other horizons.
love energy? Recession? Post-pandemic world aviation crisis? It’s all there. Also for Ryanair. But on Thursday (while those who had booked were warned by the company that Roma would be gone from February 1st) the agencies broke the news. Ansa: «Ryanair celebrates 25 years in Italy. The manager O’Leary, who presented the new offers from Milan and Rome, met first with Foreign Minister Tajani and then with Transport Minister Salvini, to whom he “explained a plan to increase our market share in Italy by 50% from 57 million passengers to 80 million in the next 5 years”. And again: «Our commitment is to bring 10 planes to Italy this summer, which represents an investment of one billion dollars, and to bring 10 planes every year for the next 5 years … From Milan there will be 12 more routes and from Rome 16, for a total of 140… The other companies are reducing their presence in Italy and we have increased it with 10 more planes – as he indicated – and an investment of 9.5 billion”.
That doesn’t sound like a crisis. And whether the project now also needed the planes on the Cuneo route? For deploying forces on Rome to counter competitor Wizz Air? In fact, the Hungarian company has just announced the closure of the Bari base (from February 16), with aircraft reallocated to reinforce routes from Rome and Milan: word of Tuesday’s press release.