A CHEER FOR FONTANAROSSA!

I can remember a time when travelling via Catania's Fontanarossa Airport was not a pleasant experience:   sparse information was displayed in the terminal, , access to its few shops was awkward, there was nowhere to sit once you had gone through security and passengers were packed into gate areas like sardines.  To be fair, I should add that even in those days you could get a good meal there and I never found the staff unhelpful.  

Over the years things have been improving, culminating in a relocation and full refurbishment in 2007.  Now Fontanarossa can compete with the best and figures released today confirm it as the number one airport in the South of Italy and as the third most important of Italy's regional airports after Venice and Bergamo.

Over six million passengers passed through Fontanarossa last year and most said that they used it four times a year.  Baggage checks at Fontanarossa are quicker than the national average in Italy and just 0.2 luggage items per 1,000 checked in there go missing, as against the national average of 2 per 1,000.

The president of Sac [Società Aeroporto Catania] puts the airport's recent success down to good marketing, restructuring and renovation.  

Now we are all waiting to see how Fontanarossa and the long-awaited rebuilt airport at Comiso [Ragusa] will work together.  I must say that the Modicani are rather less optimistic about Comiso than the Transport Minister, Altero Matteoli, who, visiting the new airport's infrastructure on Monday, promised to return with a bottle of champagne to celebrate the opening before the summer.  The Modicani, when asked about an opening date, just shrug their shoulders and laugh.

But meanwhile, let's hear it for Fontanarossa!