Italy airports passenger traffic 2025: 229.7 million passengers, and in 2026 the growth left Rome and Malpensa

Five airports carry 54% of passengers, and low-cost airlines carry 63%

ENAC's annual report, Dati di traffico 2025, put the 2025 total at 229,740,554 passengers, against a restated 218,713,879 in 2024. That is an increase of 11.0 million passengers, or 5.04%. The count covers passengers arriving and departing on scheduled and charter flights. It excludes direct transit passengers, who stay on the aircraft. Movements were about 1.5 million, up 3%, and cargo reached 1,242,360 tonnes, up 2%.

International traffic drove the year. International passengers numbered 157.2 million, 68% of the total, and grew 8% (ENAC). Flights to and from other EU countries carried 43% of all passengers and flights outside the EU carried 25%. Domestic passengers numbered 72.4 million to 72.5 million, depending on which ENAC document is read, and their share fell from 33% to 32%. Each domestic passenger in this series is counted twice, once departing from one Italian airport and once arriving at another.

Concentration is high. ENAC reports that the five busiest airports handled more than 54% of passengers and that Fiumicino alone handled 22.2%. Malpensa followed with 31.2 million passengers and a 13.6% share. Bergamo Orio al Serio, northeast of Milan, handled 16.9 million (7.4%). Naples handled 13.2 million (5.8%), Catania 12.3 million (5.4%) and Venice 11.8 million (5.2%). On Assaeroporti's 2025 table, as republished by Italiavola & Travel on 4 February 2026, which includes direct transit, the top five come to 125.3 million passengers, or 54.4% of the national total. The top three come to 43.3%.

The growth in 2025 was uneven. Malpensa grew 8.6% and Bari 9.7% on that table. Bergamo fell 2.4% and Catania was flat at +0.2%. Assaeroporti counted 41 airports, of which 34 grew and seven fell (Bergamo, Brescia, Comiso, Cuneo, Forlì, Taranto and Trapani), according to the same republished table. The ten largest airports grew 4.07% combined. All the other airports grew 8.28% combined. Several regional airports posted double-digit gains in 2025, including Trieste (+25.1%), Genoa (+18.1%) and Lamezia Terme (+12.4%). Florence grew 9.4%. The sources read for this report give no official reason for Bergamo's decline. Smaller airports in the south and center posted the largest percentage gains, from small bases. Pescara grew 31.5% to 1,114,691 passengers and Reggio Calabria grew 56.7% to 977,984. Twenty-five airports handled more than 1 million passengers in 2025 on Assaeroporti's table, and the same count, 25, passed 1 million in the first nine months of 2026.

Low-cost airlines are the spine of the system. ENAC classifies carriers as low-cost or traditional. Low-cost carriers moved 145.4 million passengers in 2025, 63% of the total, up 6%. Traditional carriers moved 84.3 million, 37%, up 3%. ENAC's report as read does not rank individual airlines or give the low-cost share at each airport. That gap matters for anyone pricing a regional airport, because the airports that grew fastest in 2025 and 2026 are largely regional ones, and the national figures cannot show which carriers drove each one. The national flag carrier's position is covered in our report on ITA Airways and Lufthansa.

Ownership is mixed. SEA, which runs Malpensa and Linate, is 54.81% owned by the Municipality of Milan and 45.01% by the infrastructure fund 2i Aeroporti, according to SEA's 2025 annual financial report. SEA's own count gave Malpensa 31.2 million passengers (+9%) and Linate 11.1 million (+5%). Aeroporti di Roma, which runs Fiumicino and Ciampino, is managed by the Mundys group, according to Mundys. Its stake was not stated on the page read for this report.

Rome and Milan are airport systems, and the rankings depend on which count you use

A ranking of Italian airports by passengers puts Fiumicino first, Malpensa second and Bergamo third. A ranking of cities gives a different picture. Milan's three airports (Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo) handled 59.5 million passengers in 2025 on Assaeroporti's 2025 table as republished by Italiavola & Travel, 25.8% of the national total. Rome's two airports (Fiumicino and Ciampino) handled 55.3 million, 24.0%. Milan is the larger air market by this measure, although Rome has the single largest airport. Travelers searching for airports in Rome find two. Travelers to Milan find three.

That is why figures for Rome conflict. ENAC's headline gives Fiumicino 50.9 million passengers. The same ENAC report gives 50.8 million in its airport section and 51.3 million when direct transit passengers are included. Assaeroporti's 2025 table, as republished by Italiavola & Travel, gives 51,306,744, which includes transit. Aeroporti di Roma says its system handled 55.3 million in 2025, a figure that matches Fiumicino plus Ciampino on the same table (55,294,261). Each figure is correct on its own basis. The 55.3 million figure describes two airports and should not be quoted as Fiumicino.

Two other pairs behave as systems. Venice and Treviso, both run by the SAVE group, handled 11,850,336 and 3,200,130 passengers in 2025 on the republished Assaeroporti table, or 15.1 million together. Pisa and Florence, both run by Toscana Aeroporti, handled 5,977,227 and 3,847,658, or 9.8 million together. In both pairs the larger airport grew faster in 2026. Venice rose 9.9% in January–September while Treviso rose 0.7%. Pisa rose 6.6% and Florence 4.2%. Florence grew 9.4% in 2025, faster than Pisa's 7.8%, so the order changed between the two years. A traveler choosing between the two Tuscan airports, or between Venice and Treviso, is choosing between airlines and routes as much as between cities.

The national total has the same problem in a smaller form. ENAC's 229,740,554 excludes direct transit. Assaeroporti's 230,081,011 includes it. ENAC counts 44 airports open to commercial traffic. Assaeroporti's statistics cover 41 airports. A 2015 presidential decree on the national airport plan, DPR 201/2015, designates 38 airports of national interest, three of which are intercontinental gateways, Fiumicino, Malpensa and Venice. The decree groups the 38 into 10 traffic basins. A question such as how many international airports Italy has has no single official answer. Most of the 44 airports handle international flights. Three are designated as long-haul gateways.

Fiumicino is large by European standards but outside the top tier. ACI Europe, the airports' trade body, reported on 5 February 2026 that Europe's five busiest airports in 2025 were London Heathrow (84.48 million), Istanbul (84.44 million), Paris Charles de Gaulle (72.02 million), Amsterdam Schiphol (68.77 million) and Madrid (68.12 million). No Italian airport was among them. ACI Europe put Italy's 2025 growth at 4.4%, ahead of Spain (3.9%), Germany (3.2%), France (2.1%) and the UK (1.7%). ENAC's own figure for Italy is 5.04%. ACI Europe's release says its data cover ACI Europe members and "might not be representative of the total European airport traffic", so the two figures should not be mixed. Rankings of Fiumicino as eighth in Europe circulate on Wikipedia and aggregator sites. ACI Europe's release does not give that rank.

Spain is the obvious comparison and the comparison needs care. Aena, which runs most Spanish airports, reported 321,587,316 passengers across its Spanish network in 2025, up 3.9%. That is 1.4 times ENAC's Italian total. Aena's figure covers its own network and is compiled on its own definitions. Eurostat publishes a harmonised series, but it was not read for this report. Per resident, Italy's airports handled 3.9 passengers in 2025, based on ISTAT's provisional population of 58,943,000 on 1 January 2026. That ratio counts each arrival and departure, residents and visitors alike. It describes airport activity and says nothing about how many trips Italians took. How the two countries compare on visitor nights is covered in Italy vs Spain tourism nights.

For travelers the gateway question is practical. Long-haul flights concentrate at Fiumicino and Malpensa, with Venice the third designated gateway; see the Venice travel guide for the airport's links to the city. Short-haul flights reach dozens of smaller airports. Bari ranked tenth in 2025 with 7,977,881 passengers, up 9.7%, and is the main airport covered in the Puglia travel guide.

In 2026 the national total grew 5.5% while Fiumicino and Malpensa barely moved

Assaeroporti's statistics page, read on 30 October 2026, gives January–September 2026 totals of 187,124,810 passengers, up 5.5% on the same months of 2025. Aircraft movements rose 4.7% to 1,436,439. Cargo fell 0.9% to 928,259 tonnes. September alone brought 23,928,665 passengers, up 6.5%. The association's release of the same day, reproduced by Agenzia Giornalistica Opinione, said the June–September summer brought 98.8 million passengers, up 6.3%, of whom 68.4 million flew international routes. August was the busiest month with 25.8 million passengers. Assaeroporti estimates that the full year will exceed 240 million passengers. That would be about 4.3% more than its 2025 total of 230.1 million. The association did not publish the method behind the estimate.

The monthly profile was steady. June brought 23.6 million passengers (+5.9%), July 25.5 million (+7.0%), August 25.8 million (+5.9%) and September 23.9 million (+6.5%), according to the Assaeroporti release. International routes carried 68.4 million of the 98.8 million summer passengers, or 69.2%. That share is not directly comparable with ENAC's 68% for 2025, because it covers four summer months and comes from the other series.

The 240 million estimate is cautious on the association's own numbers. The January–September 2025 base implied by Assaeroporti's +5.5% is about 177.4 million passengers. Subtracting that from the 2025 full-year total of 230.1 million leaves about 52.7 million for October–December 2025. To pass 240 million, October–December 2026 needs about 52.9 million, which is roughly the same as a year earlier. These are derived figures, built from a rounded percentage. They show that the estimate assumes almost no growth in the last quarter, after nine months of 5.5%.

The 41 airport rows in Assaeroporti's January–September table add up exactly to the national total. They show where the growth went. Fiumicino handled 39.7 million passengers, up 1.1%. Malpensa handled 24.1 million, up 0.9%. Together the two airports carried 34.1% of passengers in those nine months. Working back from the published percentages, they added roughly 0.65 million passengers between them, about 7% of a national gain of roughly 9.8 million. These are derived approximations, because the percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Palermo added roughly 1.1 million passengers (+15.1%). Bergamo added roughly 1.0 million (+7.4%), reversing its 2025 decline. Venice added roughly 0.9 million (+9.9%), Naples 0.8 million (+7.9%), and Bari and Linate about 0.7 million each (+11.8% and +8.7%). Turin grew 18.0%.

The Milan airports swapped places between the two years. In 2025 Malpensa grew 8.6% and Bergamo fell 2.4%. In January–September 2026 Malpensa grew 0.9% and Bergamo grew 7.4%. Linate grew in both periods, by 4.5% and then 8.7%. Milan's three airports together handled 47.0 million passengers in the first nine months of 2026, 25.1% of the national total, against 42.7 million (22.8%) for Rome's two. The published series do not explain the swap. Ryanair's announcement of more than 640,000 extra winter seats at Malpensa, a 27% increase, describes planned capacity for the coming season. Seats are not passengers, and the effect will show only in Assaeroporti's monthly data from November onward.

Four airports in the larger group fell or grew less than 1%. Catania fell 3.3% over January–September. Ciampino fell 1.0%. Treviso grew 0.7% and Malpensa 0.9%. Catania's fall is concentrated in August, during the Etna closure, and in September (−15.4%), for which no source gives a reason. Mount Etna erupted in August. The airport operator SAC announced that arrivals were suspended until 02:00 on 15 August. On 14 August Reuters reported that around 630 flights had been diverted from Catania between 6 and 12 August and that more than a third of the 1,974 scheduled flights had been cancelled. Il Post reported on 12 August that 450 flights had been cancelled in the 8–11 August window. The two reports cover different days. Neither is an official count of passengers affected.

The passenger data show the effect at airport level without measuring it. Catania handled 1,001,412 passengers in August, down 22.6%, according to Assaeroporti's August table as published by AVIONEWS on 30 September. September was down 15.4%. Working back from the published percentages, Catania lost roughly 292,000 passengers in August and 190,000 in September. Its nine-month loss was roughly 315,000. That means January–July was up by roughly 167,000 passengers, and the whole decline sits in the last two months of the period. These are derived approximations. Comiso, the small airport in the south-east of Sicily, lost almost half its traffic in 2025 (−48.4% to 134,495, on the republished Assaeroporti table). It nearly quadrupled over January–September 2026 to 325,439 passengers (+286.1%). Only about 52,000 of its roughly 241,000 extra passengers came in August, so most of the rebound happened outside the closure. Palermo grew 32.3% in August and 29.9% in September. Assaeroporti does not attribute any of Palermo's growth to diversions, and no published source separates diverted passengers from new demand. Travelers planning eastern Sicily can find airport options in the Sicily travel guide.

The second 2026 story is a tax. Italian airports charge a municipal surcharge per departing passenger, the addizionale comunale. Ryanair said on 1 October 2026 that the charge can reach up to €7 per passenger at Bergamo and Malpensa, after a recent €0.50 rise on non-EU flights at Italy's main airports. Ryanair said Abruzzo, Calabria, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily and Emilia-Romagna were abolishing the charge or reducing airport costs, and offered 40 more aircraft, 20 million more passengers a year and 250 routes if the government abolished it nationally. These are Ryanair's statements. The same release announced 8.7 million winter seats in Milan (+11%), including more than 640,000 extra seats at Malpensa (+27%). No government or ENAC document on the surcharge's traffic effect was found.

The airport data cannot settle Ryanair's argument. Pescara in Abruzzo grew 33.1% over January–September and Lamezia Terme in Calabria grew 16.8%. Trapani in Sicily grew 32.7%. Turin, in a region not on Ryanair's list, grew 18.0%. Forlì in Emilia-Romagna fell 15.6%, and Ryanair's announcement for that region was dated 28 September, after most of the period. The dates on which each regional change took effect were not established in the documents read. A causal estimate would need route-level seat data and fares, which are not published in these series.

The third pressure is outside Italy. Assaeroporti said geopolitical tensions limited links with important Middle East markets and changed routings between Europe and Asia. It said fears of a jet fuel shortage were overcome before the summer while costs stayed high. The association's director general, Valentina Menin, said geopolitics and airlines' choices on routes and frequencies could affect the coming months. Assaeroporti gave no figure for either effect. Our 2026 tourism record watch tracks how the year's other demand series are moving.

The common thread in 2026 is that totals are published and effects are not. Assaeroporti publishes monthly passengers for 41 airports within weeks. ENAC publishes an annual report with segment shares. Neither publishes passengers by nationality or residence at each airport, a Schengen and non-Schengen split by airport, or the low-cost share at each airport. No public dataset separates passengers diverted by the Etna closure from new demand at Palermo, prices the effect of the municipal surcharge, or measures the loss of Middle East connections. Analysts who need those answers have to buy airline schedule and booking data or ask the operators. The public series can show where traffic moved. They cannot show why.

Several figures in circulation do not survive a check against the source documents. The most consequential is a headline that Malpensa grew 8.6% in the first half of 2026. That number is Malpensa's growth for the whole of 2025. Assaeroporti's January–September 2026 figure for Malpensa is +0.9%.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers can expect Italy's largest airports to stay busy and its regional airports to keep adding routes. Fiumicino and Malpensa handle most long-haul flights, and their traffic grew about 1% in January–September 2026, so passenger growth there was modest. Low-cost carriers moved 63% of Italy's airport passengers in 2025, and Rome and Milan each have more than one airport, so check which airport a fare uses before booking. Catania's August 2026 closure showed how a single volcanic event can divert hundreds of flights within days. Travelers to eastern Sicily can note Palermo and Comiso as the alternatives used in August 2026.

Tourism businesses and investors should read airport totals as activity counts. ENAC's 229.7 million is the number of arrivals and departures, so it is not a count of visitors, and no Italian source splits airport passengers by residence or nationality at airport level. The 2026 growth sits in Palermo, Bari, Venice, Naples, Bergamo, Linate and Turin, with Fiumicino and Malpensa near flat, on Assaeroporti's January–September data. Assaeroporti's 240 million estimate for 2026 is the association's own forecast. Ryanair's offer of 20 million extra passengers in return for abolishing the municipal surcharge is a negotiating position. Neither has a published model behind it.

Journalists and analysts can take the citable figures from the box above and should name the series each time. Do not repeat a Malpensa growth figure of 8.6% for 2026. That number is Malpensa's 2025 growth. Do not repeat a 10% rise in Fiumicino's US traffic in early 2026, which could not be traced to its cited source. Do not quote 55.3 million as Fiumicino's traffic, because it covers Fiumicino and Ciampino together. Do not mix ENAC and Assaeroporti figures in one comparison, and do not present ACI Europe's 4.4% as Italy's official growth rate. Treat Assaeroporti's 240 million and Ryanair's 20 million as forecasts by interested parties.