ENAC’s National Airport Plan
In November 2022 ENAC presented its National Airport Plan, a very concise plan that looks at Italian aviation up to 2035 with three key aspects throughout the report:
- Aviation traffic will continue to growth substantially to 305 Million passengers a year in 2035
- Aviation will have to deal with a lot of challenges before implementing a zero C02 approach by 2050
- New forms of aviation from drones to hydrogen driven airplanes
The report indicates a baseline scenario with a market potential in terms of passenger numbers of 232 million in 2025, 266 million in 2030 and 302 million in 2035.
Compared to 2019, growth is estimated to vary from +20% up to 2025 and up to +56.2% to 2035.
The report further addresses some of the key challenges of the sector:
- The environmental and sustainability challenge; esp. with regards to the expected zero C02 approach in 2050
- The technological evolution and the acceleration of the digitisation processes;
- The impact of climate change;
- The (regional) accessibility to transport services
The plan takes into consideration the spread of aviation traffic over the territory (over the regions) to guarantee accessibility to all, and the 13 key airports which are given labels that indicate their focus whether intercontinental, international and national.
The report also gives an overview of the current traffic per airport and how this is spread during the daytime over both the airside and the terminal.
At the same time, a different form of development for the airport infrastructure will be made, based on technological innovation, implementing the latest technologies to increase airport capacity. But also countering the issues with airport saturation, including the use of satellite technology for a more rational use of the airspace.
In this context the adoption of Remote Digital Towers needs to be seen, ATC’s for multiple airports centralized in one or more remote towers.
Interesting is that the plan wants to address the broader question of how to improve the quality of the capacity offered but at the same time understand how to make it sustainable, more modular and resilient to change, enhancing forms of intermodality and digitalisation.
A national aviation plan can of course not be complete without looking at the technologies of the future, it addresses the aspects of urban mobility and regional mobility where hydrogen planes and other types of mobility (that can take more than 9 people) are illustrated.
A unique report that gives a very comprehensive view on Italian aviation, expected growth, how the growth will be managed by integrating multiple solutions, considering environmental constraints and so much more.
Check out the full report (in Italian) here
