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Routes Europe 2026 Expected to Propel Rimini Airport Forward

Federico Fellini International Airport of Rimini and San Marino bets on hosting Routes Europe 2026 to increase its route network.

Federico Fellini International Airport of Rimini and San Marino’s main terminal (Photo: TeddyDTE – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

One of the mantras of the airline industry is “sell airlines, buy airports.” Evidence shows that profitability can be much easier to reach among airports than among airlines, where even the most successful enterprises struggle to reach double-digit profit margins. But that is not necessarily true for small regional airports serving less densely populated regions or that, for whatever reason, are not able to attract healthy traffic streams.

One example of this harsh reality is Federico Fellini International Airport in Rimini, Italy. This airport, located in the middle of one of the most touristically-developed areas on the Italian Adriatic coast and named after the famous film director Federico Fellini, had good traffic flows in the recent past with a record 916,239 passengers in 2011, but poor management, bankruptcies, and external events led to a period of temporary closure in the middle of the 2010s.

Airiminum 2014 S.p.A. took over control in 2015 and committed to its relaunch.

Host of Routes Europe 2026

As part of this plan to develop new traffic, during the 2024 edition of Routes World in Bahrain, Airiminum 2014 announced it will host Routes Europe 2026, the regional event managed by the aviation consulting company ASM that promotes networking between European airports and airlines interested in serving the region.

“We are very proud to host Routes Europe in 2026 in our city for promoting our airport, its conference center and the city of Rimini in order to attract new flight services. Our objective to increase direct air connections is a top priority for Rimini Airport and for the future of the city,” said Leonardo Corbucci, CEO of Airiminum 2014 after the announcement. “Rimini Airport is the gateway for the territory to Europe and its promotion and development are a key element in maintaining Rimini as a cutting-edge city on an international level. We truly believe that Rimini will leave an indelible mark on the participants of the European development forum of 2026 and will help Airiminum Airport to grow even more in all markets.”

During Routes World 2024 in Bahrain, AirlineGeeks had the opportunity to meet with Enzo Salvatore Arena, post holder for aviation movements of Rimini Airport, to discuss the next development steps of this airport serving an area with three million visitors a year but currently only capturing a small percentage of the air traffic potential of its area.

“We are very proud to be the operator for Rimini Airport, completely privatized, and with a concession that will last until 2050, with a possible extension of one further year to account for the traffic we lost due to the COVID pandemic,” Arena said.

During 2020 the airport only registered 38,758 passengers, a 90% drop compared to 2019. But Rimini Airport’s toughest challenge was still to come, with the war between Russia and Ukraine and the economic sanctions towards Russia: “Until 2022 approximately 65% of our traffic was originating from those two countries, and although the passenger numbers were not exceptional, it allowed us to build a good profitability basis.”

New Year-Round Services to be Announced

At the moment, three scheduled airlines are operating from Fellini Airport: Ryanair is the biggest operator, with nine routes (eight of which are seasonal), then Luxair flies some services during the summer and Wizz Air has just started a year-round service to Tirana, Albania. Then there are also some charters operated by Neos to sunshine destinations in the Mediterranean. “Rimini is not only an incoming market,” explains Arena. “There are many people living here who work all summer and then want to go on vacation themselves when the season is over.”

The tourist season has been getting longer and longer in recent years, as the local authorities have been pushing on the fairs and exhibition market: “Between Rimini and the nearby Riccione there are approximately 340-350 events a year, and we have a circuit in Misano, right at the end of Runway 31, hosting top-tier motorbike competitions.” The season is now extending from April to almost November, providing a good business case for year-round services.

“There will soon be announcements for four new routes, which will start in summer 2025 and two of those routes will continue also in the winter,” said Arena. Rimini Airport is still working hard to re-establish a link to a major European hub in order to provide passengers in their catchment area a local option to connect to long-haul flights.

Until 2019 there was a Lufthansa service to Frankfurt, but the flight was not reinstated after a suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now Lufthansa is in the process of purchasing a controlling stake in ITA Airways, the new Italian flag carrier: “We can’t say ITA Airways will be coming to Rimini soon, the decisional process is now more complicated and involves the parent company in Germany, but it is not totally out of question,” added Arena. “I am confident we will have another network carrier in Rimini within a few years.”

Stop the Leakage

Rimini Airport’s 30 km (19 miles) catchment area includes also the small landlocked country of San Marino, attracting 2.4 million visitors per year despite a population of only 34,000 people. According to an analysis by ASM, that catchment area generates approximately 2.8 million air journeys, 80% of which are leaked to other airports, some of them even as far as Milan, a 4.5-hour drive away.

Hopefully, when delegates of Routes Europe 2026 will descend on Rimini in less than two years’ time, they will be able to fly directly to Rimini instead of having to use Bologna or other airports in the region.

Vanni Gibertini
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  • Vanni Gibertini

    Vanni fell in love with commercial aviation during his undergraduate studies in Statistics at the University of Bologna, when he prepared his thesis on the effects of deregulation on the U.S. and European aviation markets. Then he pursued his passion further by obtaining a Master’s Degree in Air Transport Management at Cranfield University in the U.K. followed by holding several management positions at various start-up carriers in Europe (Jet2, SkyEurope, Silverjet). After moving to Canada, he was Business Development Manager for IATA for nine years before turning to his other passion: sports writing.

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