(Finance) – On February 14, 2002 the partnership between Ryanair and SACBO, the company that manages Milan Bergamo Airport, got underway. Today, Valentine’s Day in 2022, marks the twentieth anniversary of that collaboration, inaugurated by the flight arriving from Frankfurt Hahn, on board which the wedding between Anja Schmitz and Thomas Pluta from the town of Andernach was celebrated.
In April of the same year Ryanair opened the route with London Stansted and the connection with Bergamo and the following year, in 2003, the CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, inaugurated the base of the Irish carrier in Bergamo, basing as many as 3 aircraft and reaching 1.3 million passengers in just twelve months.
Over the course of twenty years, the Irish low cost airline invested heavily in Italy and above all in Bergamo, increasing both the number of aircraft based and international / domestic routes, and strengthening Bergamo’s role as Ryanair’s main Italian base. The airport thus reached 34 million passengers at the end of the first ten years of operation and a total of 110 million at the end of 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic.
After the parenthesis imposed by the economic-health crisis, the Irish airline led the recovery, sending the first of its new “Green” B737-8200 Gamechanger “aircraft to Bergamo and arriving at 11 of these low fuel consumption and emissions aircraft. of CO2 and acoustics. This twentieth year is celebrated with a record offer that counts 109 summer routes and is preparing to welcome more passengers than in the pre-Covid period.
“An important anniversary for the airport, for Ryanair, for SACBO, and for the city of Bergamo”, comments Emilio Bellingardi, general manager of SACBO, underlining that “having intercepted and understood the new business model linked to air transport twenty years ago it brought about an epochal change, of which the Milan Bergamo airport was the protagonist and which has spread with undoubted benefits throughout the national territory “.
“Here we are celebrating twenty years of collaboration between Ryanair and Milan Bergamo Airport, which have seen the achievement of unthinkable remarkable goals”, said Giacomo Cattaneo Sales Director of SACBO, adding “we are now after twenty years with the largest schedule ever with 109 routes and this is an equally important milestone, which means reaching and exceeding the historical records that our collaboration had reached in 2019 “.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, announcing the anniversary, stressed “together with SACBO we have written an exciting success story of passion and hard work. We will continue to work together with our partner SACBO to provide further growth.”
“We have based 20 aircraft in Milan Bergamo and it is here that the most efficient, comfortable and silent B737 Gamechanger ever made its debut last July. Ryanair – recalled the company’s number one – is one of the largest foreign investors in Italy: only in Bergamo we made an investment of over $ 2 billion, supporting over 900 highly paid aviation jobs and over 8,600 indirect jobs. “
“February 14, 2002 is a date that goes beyond the celebratory aspect, because it marks a turning point in the management policy of Bergamo airport, having realized twenty years ago, through the agreement with Ryanair, the great potential that over time have been have been expressed and translated into a strategic asset for the mobility and international expansion of the reference territory “, president of SACBO, Giovanni Sanga, adding that Ryanair” with the Bergamo airport has become a privileged gateway to eastern Lombardy from and for a large number of countries, determining benefits in terms of economic and employment growth, favoring internalization on the cultural and university front “.