Italy: Rome’s Fiumicino airport to open major new boarding area with 23 gates
Rome: Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci international airport, known as Fiumicino, is set to open a major new boarding area to travellers on 19 May.
Airport management company Aeroporti di Roma (AdR) has invested €400 million in building Boarding Area A, a three-storey structure covering 37,000 sqm and linked to Terminal 1.
Construction of the new boarding area, which will have 23 gates, began at the end of 2017 but was stalled by the covid lockdown in March 2020.
The development will increase the annual number of passengers transiting through the airport by more than six million, reports La Repubblica which had a preview of the site ahead of its inauguration on 18 May.
Illuminated by natural light, the structure will house retail and food shops, nursery services, a playground and VIP business areas, with 13 of the 23 new gates equipped with loading bridges to board planes directly.
The boarding area also boasts eco-sustainable credentials, reports Corriere della Sera, equipped with solar panel systems and adhering to all the main international environmental norms.
The new facility is part of AdR’s project to expand the eastern area of the airport which is reserved for domestic connections and short and medium-flights in the Schengen area.
“A commitment that represents a real initiative of recovery and resilience, achieved despite the serious impacts of the pandemic crisis”, the CEO of AdR Marco Troncone told Corriere della Sera, underlining that “until last March the airport housed an average of 40,000 passengers per day, which is equivalent to 30 per cent of the flow of arrivals and departures in pre-covid times.”
The airport’s expansion project also includes plans to redevelop another T1 boarding area built in the early 1990s, with at least 10 boarding gates, La Repubblica reports, with work set to begin in July.
