An airport in constant evolution

Among the secondary effects of the health emergency we are experiencing is the drastic decrease in air traffic and consequently the reduced movement of people in Italian airports. Our society, which in recent years has become naturally nomadic and hyperconnected, is waiting to be able to move freely again. It happens, however, that this forced stop can be an opportunity for the renewal and adaptation of airport infrastructures, as it happens at Milan Bergamo Airport, which in the last two decades has never stopped its growth, in terms of traffic and structure. SACBO, the company that manages the airport, continues with its investment programme for the Airport Development Plan.

What the Milan Bergamo Airport has undertaken is a path of growth and rationalisation of spaces, aimed at guaranteeing functionality, safety and comfort, as well as improving accessibility. The new design responds to operational needs and can be modulated according to the evolution prospects of the aviation scenario. On 16 July 2020 – marking the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of SACBO – a new extension of 9,500 sqm was inaugurated on the east side, in the non-Schengen wing, while the extension of the Schengen area on the west side of the airport is expected in December 2021.

Another important transformation will be the railway connection with the regional railway network, through a new double-track line connecting Bergamo station and from there to Milan and the High Speed network. The new route will make it possible to have in Orio al Serio station one train every 30 minutes from Milano Centrale or Porta Garibaldi, one train every sixty minutes from Lecco and one train every sixty minutes from Ponte San Pietro. When fully operational, 146 trains will pass through the airport station every day, 128 during the day and 18 at night.

Milan Bergamo airport is the second largest hub in Lombardy and the third in Italy (the first is Rome Fiumicino). It had the foresight to open, at the beginning of the new millennium, to low cost airlines, but recently several European airlines have chosen Bergamo airport for some strategic routes. Before the Covid-19 emergency there were 140 destinations reached from the airport, bound for more than 40 countries.  These new transformations will make the Milan Bergamo Airport increasingly a reference point for mobility not only in the Milanese metropolitan area but for the whole of Northern Italy.