In the past few years, Naples International Airport has experienced a near doubling of its network, mainly on its international routes. Its aggressive marketing strategy targeting new airlines contributed to the airport winning this year’s ACI EUROPE Best Airport Award in the ‘5-10 million passengers’ category. Armando Brunini, CEO Naples International Airport and Vice President, ACI EUROPE, spoke to Marta Dimitrova.
Back in 2013, as Naples International Airport was working on a new five-year business plan, it saw very clearly that there was unexploited potential in international tourists visiting the region. “It therefore became the number one priority to stimulate this market segment,” begins Armando Brunini, CEO Naples International Airport, winner of this year’s ACI EUROPE Best Airport Award in the ‘5-10 million passengers’ category.
Today, Naples has nearly doubled its network with most additions being international routes. This was noted by the ACI EUROPE Best Airport Awards judges, who praised the airport’s excellent combination of smart airport management alongside tourism development, recognising the airport as a great regional economic driving force.
Alessandro Fidato, COO Naples International Airport and Armando Brunini, CEO Naples International Airport, were presented with the ACI EUROPE Best Airport Award in the ‘5-10 million passengers’ category by Salvatore Sciacchitano, Executive Secretary, ECAC.
“We worked hard to help create the right culture and environment, in order to establish a more structured and professional destination management within the local community,” Brunini explains.
The airport is heavily involved in Naples’ first-ever ‘Tourism Strategic Plan’, while helping establish and chairing the local Convention Bureau. “Today, undoubtedly, the airport is considered by all stakeholders one of the main drivers of Naples’ touristic renaissance,” says Brunini.
The awards judges also highlighted the airport’s significant improvements to the passenger experience. Naples acknowledges the basic needs of its passengers and is constantly working on reducing queueing times throughout the passenger journey.
Naples is famous for its archaeological sites and some of the most spectacular Roman ruins can be found in the region. It has impressive history, culture and art, and the airport has focused strongly on reflecting this and creating a ‘sense of place’ through architecture, interior design and elements of local art and history. “For example, we have statues from the Pompeian times in various points of the terminal,” Brunini notes.
Additionally, the airport offers its passengers the best of local food and shopping, combining a variety of local and international brands.
In 2016, passenger numbers increased by 10% to almost 6.8 million. “I think that the work we did in terms of marketing and route development gave the chance to several airlines to test our market, which is now beginning to show its full potential that was previously unexploited,” Brunini shares.
So far in 2017, traffic growth has accelerated to over 20% and the forecast is to exceed 8 million passengers this year.
The airport’s marketing strategy is also continuously evolving. With over 90 direct routes, Brunini explains that the airport’s European network is nearly complete. “We will now begin focusing on incentives and efforts on seasonality, such as more winter flights, on increasing frequencies on routes with potential, and in trying to attract one or two intercontinental players.”
Looking ahead, there are a number of important projects on the horizon. For example, Naples is currently accredited at Level 3 Optimisation of ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation, and is launching a three-year project to create a power generation plant that will bring it to carbon neutrality.
Other plans include construction of a new cargo building, new and upgraded car rental facilities, and expansion of the departure hall. Meanwhile, the most important project, which will have a significant impact on airport accessibility, is construction of a metro station which the city foresees completing by 2022.
