Having already lined up 14 new routes during S18, eight of which being unserved markets, Milan Bergamo is set to offer a significantly expanded route network during this summer. Delivering growth rates exceeding 10% throughout 2017, S18 will continue to be a period of traffic development as the Italian airport will offer more than 1,300 additional flights than it did last summer.
The summer also sees the arrival of Milan Bergamo’s 19th carrier as Air Arabia Egypt launches a connection to Borg el Arab in May. Facing no direct competition on this airport pair, the twice-weekly service to Egypt’s second largest city becomes the Italian airport’s third destination to the country.
Joining the airport’s airline roll call last April, Ukraine International Airlines will launch its third service almost a year to the day since its inaugural flight to Milan Bergamo. Adding a twice-weekly link to Kharkiv on 27 April, the Ukrainian flag carrier’s latest operation becomes the airport’s fifth link to Ukraine, now its 11th largest country market.
Adding its first link to Croatia, May will see Milan Bergamo launch two services to the Eastern European country with Volotea. Offering nearly 10,000 seats in total to Croatia during S18, the Spanish low-cost carrier will add Split and Dubrovnik to the airport’s route network on 25 May and 28 May respectively. In addition, the carrier will increase its presence on Milan Bergamo’s domestic network with a three times weekly service to Olbia – the airport’s largest market will offer nearly 1.15 million seats during the summer.
Later S18 will further consolidate Greece as Milan Bergamo’s sixth largest country market as Blu Express commences flights to Kos and Karpathos. As the harbour town of Kos becomes the airport’s 14th connection to Greece on 15 June, a week later will see the Italian airline launch its latest route from Milan Bergamo as it adds Karpathos on 24 June. Securing its position as the airport’s third largest carrier in terms of weekly seats, the LCC has recently announced the airport’s first link to Cape Verde, a weekly service to Sal becoming the airline’s 12th route from Milan Bergamo this summer.
Continuing to support the growth of the airport, Ryanair will offer 88 destinations from Milan Bergamo during S18. Commencing twice-weekly links to Tangiers, Poznan, Bourgas, Lappeenranta and Paphos all in the first week of the new season, the Irish ultra-low-cost carrier has also recently announced a daily service to Crotone in June – its 11th domestic route from the Italian airport. Ryanair will offer close to an additional 200,000 seats from Milan Bergamo throughout the summer schedule.
Commenting on the route expansion Giacomo Cattaneo, Director of Aviation, SACBO says: “We’re happy to be able to deliver an exciting set of new routes for our customers this year. We work closely with all our airline partners to add new destinations, as well as making some of our well-established network points more accessible than before, to ensure we continue the growth trend we experienced last year throughout 2018 and beyond.”
