In Sardinia, if the current emergency contract for the continuità territoriale routes, widely covered by Aviacionline, was done in the last possible minute – tickets were put on sale by Volotea less than 48 hours before the start of the operations -, the government of the Italian Autonomous Region does not want to incur in the same mistake again.

The basic guidelines for the next full contract, to last for two years, from May 2022, were outlined this week by the regional government, Italy’s news agency ANSA has reported.

To the surprise of many, the announcement that two destinations in the mainland would be reintroduced to the subsidy program: Bologna, in the Emilia-Romagna region, and Turin, in the Piedmont region.

While Bologna will be connected to Alghero and Cagliari, Turin will only be connected to Cagliari. The current connections, from Alghero, Cagliari and Olbia to Milan/Linate and Rome/Fiumicino, should be maintained.

The contract forecasts a fixed rate for residents in exchange for an annual subsidy paid by the Region. The run for applications works on a route-by-route basis, and usually the bid with the least subsidies requested wins, as happened with Volotea this month.

According to ANSA, the expected ceiling of resident fares to Rome/Fiumicino will be EUR39, with the tickets to Milan/Linate and Bologna costing EUR47 and the ones to Torino fixed at a maximum of EUR60.

Volotea currently offers fares from EUR40 to Fiumicino, reaching EUR62 in the route to Olbia, and from EUR40 to Linate, reaching EUR76 in the three connections to Sardinia. All flights include one dispatched luggage.

The new routes

Naturally, the announcement generated reactions from the largest airline in Bologna and Turin, Ryanair, which has bases in both airports. Bologna is the airline’s second largest base in Italy, only after Bergamo.

From last week’s capacity filings, as per Cirium’s Diio Mi, Ryanair has increased its presence in two of the three new routes – all of which it serves.

For April 2022, for instance, the airline had 70 flights scheduled between Alghero and Bologna last week; in this week’s filing, Ryanair had increased the frequencies to 78.

A much larger increase was observed in the Cagliari-Turin route; from last week’s 26 frequencies for April 2022, the company has passed to 86 scheduled flights in this week’s uploaded schedule.