Fourteen hours to fly (with Ryanair) from Vienna to Genoa
Genoa – “Life is beautiful”. It’s true, it could always be worse, rain for example… But on Sunday spent by about 155 passengers of the Ryanair flight Vienna-Genoaand others 180 BC Genoa heading to the Austrian capital with the same return flight, it is not to be wished on anyone.
An ordeal, a true odyssey. The Flight from Vienna it was scheduled at 10 in the morning and landed at Genoa at midnight. Fourteen hours later, exactly twelve hours of delay between the scheduled and real departure. One of the maximum delays registered at the Genoa airport in recent times, where several problems have also occurred due to problems related to the wind or the airlines (last, a Vueling flight a few days ago from Paris to Milan with over a number of passengers left at the mercy of the strike and with enormous difficulty in recovering the luggage from the hold). And in Vienna airport with no explanation of any kind nor assistance from Ryanair airline, which has left the bags suspended for hours hunting for information on what to do.
The only direct communication, de visuwas that of a commander who at 18, after the umpteenth time slip on the flight board, introduced himself to the already angry passengers saying: “Don’t worry, let’s go now”. “After that he got on the phone, he asked someone for clarifications, and when he ended the phone call he said: I guess I’m going to get a coffee. Life is good” and he walked away embarrassed. Poor fellow, he too was speechless, in fact we had to wait yet another hour before having our flight, the only clearer information we had came from the Genoa airport which at least assisted us by telephone” says Emanuele Rossi, a Genoese journalist who had to return to Genoa after taking advantage of the opportunity of the recent Genoa-Vienna flight that Ryanair takes place on Thursdays and Sundaystherefore allowing the weekend in Austria. It is appreciable that the Irish low-cost airline is aiming for Genoa. Then, however, dealing with flights, one necessarily looks at the service offered, therefore at punctuality and service. And mistakes like the one on Sunday, on the flight from Vienna but also on the Cagliari-Genoa Ryanair flight (two hours late from Sardinia), cannot be trivialised.
“The problem – continues the Genoese – is that at 10 in the morning we had already boarded and we were all in the tube to get on board. After that they sent us back without explanation with our plane, a Aria Lauda, which remained there. They didn’t tell us about technical problems or anything else. The most diverse rumors have spread, even that there was someone with Covid. They just said there’s a delay and so we all started waiting”.
Thus began a nerve-wracking ordeal. First 12, then 3, then 6.20, finally 10.30. Sunday at the Viennese airport was spent with families, couples, young tourists and seniors waiting to understand if they would arrive in Genoa and how they would proceed, given that many were then headed elsewhere e if they were late, they would miss trains and already booked rental cars.
And the same happened in those hours in Genoa, al Columbuswhere almost 200 passengers waiting for that flight back to Vienna, scheduled for the early afternoon, had no certainty of the times but at least they received greater assistance from the Genoese airport.
“We have duties of communication, assistance and rescue which we obviously respect – they explain to Colombo – When flight delays or carrier problems occur, ENAC expects the airport to implement a series of assistance measures which we also applied on Sunday as always. Unfortunately, the causes of these situations are not attributable to the airports which do everything possible to make the inconvenience as light as possible on the passengers. In this case there has been a change of vehicle by the carrier…”
In Vienna, however, this “assistance” was not excellent, far from it. Other passengers told The 19th century to have been left without any assistance. “A full day spent at the airport in Vienna without ever being able to speak to a person, only confused news on the screens or via SMS, with simple notices of the delay and no explanations or certainty of returning to Genoa – says another passenger – Imagine the climate among the passengers, there were many families who had relatives waiting for them. Then in Vienna there was a group of guys from Nice who, after landing in Genoa, didn’t know how to get back to France given the hour. We knew for ourselves that it was expected a voucher of 7 euros for each passenger a full day’s view at the airport. No one said anything about this either, when word got around we went to the bar and they discounted it on our drinks. Among other things, with 7 euros at the airport you can barely buy a sandwich…”.
In the end, after exactly 12 hours from the first boarding, the group was finally able to welcome on another Ryanair flight arriving from Manchester in Vienna and then left for Genoa. Thus, at midnight, the passengers disembarked at Colombo passing the baton to the departing “Viennese”, who arrived in the capital late at night and were in turn enraged.
Not attributable to the Genoa airport but these inconveniences only make the port of Liguria worse which for years has been trying to take off by conquering more traffic and routes but with efforts that don’t always pay off. The conditions of the its 3 km track, obtained from a fill in the sea in front of Sestri Ponente begun in the 1950s, certainly do not favor the development of a fascinating but problematic airport.
The wind, the sea, the gulls, the city and the port settlements so close together (in fact it is classified as a city-airportwith various safety standards of ENAC, the civil aviation body), cause Colombo greater difficulties in the development of its passenger traffic. Geographical difficulties typical of Liguria squeezed between the sea and the mountains which up to now have also always undermined the development of the other small regional airport, that of Villanova d’Albengain the west, it managed to take off ten years ago with a direct flight to Rome which lasted only a short time Claudius Scajola he was a powerful minister from Imperia.
The discussion launched by the former president of the port authority on the Genoa airport is recent Luigi Merlo what he said”with high-speed rail, the Genoa airport may no longer be strategic”. A position contested by those who consider the airport an infrastructure not only necessary but vital for Liguria and for this to be strengthened, as the management company and the institutions have been doing for years with investments and improvement projects.
Yes, because then it is from the routes and functionalities that an assessment of the efficiency of an airport is derived. Genoa post Covid has it again different carriers and many routes but it is not always competitive with respect to the context of competitor airports environment. And misunderstandings like the one on Sunday from Vienna, and in part Cagliari, do a lot of damage to his reputation (although, as mentioned, the responsibility does not lie with the airport in any way). Apart from i historical connections with Rome and Londontoday there are also international flights to Amsterdam, Munich, Barcelona, Brussels, Bucharest, Dublin, Manchester, Paris, Tirana, Vienna; and of course the domestic routes that also connect with Bari, Brindisi, Cagliari, Catania, Lamezia, Naples and Palermo. In short, there is a good choice of destinations but nothing compared to the frequency, and often the price, of other nearby airports and therefore fatally “predators” of Ligurian passengers.
It is no coincidence if Pisa, Nice, Turin and Bergamonot to mention the two maxi Milanese airports of Linate and Malpensain the last 10 years have had growth performance clearly superior to the Colombo. Which, let’s be clear, has a runway on the sea and much smaller spaces, so proportionally it also works miracles when exposed to the sea and the wind. But in times of thrust thrust, airports that have almost only in the fog the main enemythey have an easier time taking audiences.
Some numbers explain better. Genoa, in the last twenty yearshas passed by 1 million and broken of passengers per year (2002) al million and a half in 2019, last full year not affected by Covid. Currently, post pandemic, in the period January-August 2022 it totaled 784 thousand passengers positioning at 22nd in Italy among all airports (first place Fiumicino with 18 million, second Malpensa with 13.5 million).
In the same last twenty years, Pisa airport has gone from less than 2 million of passengers per year to 5.3 million pre pandemic and in the first half of 2022 it made more than 3 million, eleventh place among Italian airports. That of Bergamo in the last twenty years it has gone from 3 million to almost 14 pre pandemic and now in the 2022 semester of the return to normal, it is already 8.5 million, third airport behind Fiumicino and Malpensa. Nice airport, very convenient for western Liguria (and by the sea like Genoa, even if much larger), in twenty years has gone from around 6 million to more than 14 million of the prepandemic period. That of Turin from 2.5 million to 4 pre pandemic and now in the 2022 semester it is already at 2.8 million, thirteenth stopover in Italy. There is pure Cuneo airport which is trying to climb back up in the Italian rankings (currently 32nd place) with its 105,000 passengers in the 2022 semester.
In short, statistics in hand Genoa is a port of call that has performed less than the others in the last twenty years. The fault is undoubtedly geographical limits and connection infrastructures, but perhaps not only that.