Falcone Borsellino Airport ( it, link=no, Aeroporto Falcone Borsellino) or simply Palermo Airport, formerly Punta Raisi Airport, is an international airport located at

Cinisi Cinisi (; scn, Cìnisi ) is a town and a '' comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo in Sicily. As of 1 January 2022 it has a population of 11.846. Geography The town is part of the Palermo metropolitan area, borders with the municipaliti ...

, west northwest of Palermo, the capital city of the Italian island of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. It is the second airport of Sicily in terms of passengers after Catania-Fontanarossa Airport, with 7,018,087 passengers handled in 2019.

History

Early years

GESAP S.p.a. is the airport management company of the airport. It has a fully paid-up share capital of €15,912,332 divided between the Regional

Province of Palermo The Province of Palermo ( it, provincia di Palermo; Sicilian: ''pruvincia di Palermu'') was a province in the autonomous region of Sicily, a major island in Southern Italy. Its capital was the city of Palermo. On 4 August 2015, it was replaced ...

, the

Comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

of Palermo, the Chamber of Commerce, the

and other minor partners. Established in 1985, until 1994 GESAP operated exclusively as handler and supplier of ground services for Palermo Airport, the management of which is directly assigned by the government and overseen by the District Airport Directorate. The airport was given the name ''Falcone Borsellino'' in memory of the two leading

anti-mafia The Italian parliamentary Antimafia Commission ( it, Commissione parlamentare antimafia) is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The first commission, formed in 1963, was ...

judges

Giovanni Falcone Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian ...

and

Paolo Borsellino Paolo Emanuele Borsellino (; scn, Pàulu Borsellino; 19 January 1940 – 19 July 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying t ...

who were murdered by the Sicilian Mafia in 1992. A diameter plaque featuring their portraits can be found to the right of one of the main outside entrances to the departure hall, set into a mosaic of Sicily. Created by the Sicilian sculptor

Tommaso Geraci Tommaso Geraci (born 29 June 1931) is an Italian sculptor, lives and works in the Sicilian town of Cefalù. Life & work Born in Sclafani Bagni, Sicily, Geraci graduated from the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam, Netherlands in fine ...

, it bears the inscription ''Giovanni Falcone–Paolo Borsellino–Gli Altri–L'orgoglio della Nuova Sicilia'' (''Giovanni Falcone–Paolo Borsellino–The Others–The Pride of the New Sicily''). In 1994, GESAP was charged with the partial management of the airport through a convention which granted the company a 20-year mandate to run land-side activities (the airport buildings and surrounding areas). In April 1999, GESAP obtained an anticipated mandate to manage the airport's air side activities, and, more specifically, the flight infrastructure (runways, links, taxiways and aprons) as foreseen by art. 17 L. 135/97. As airport management company, GESAP plans, creates and manages the airport's areas, infrastructures and systems, ensuring the necessary maintenance and implementation of the same. It also provides centralised services such as airport coordination, public information systems, security controls and surveillance as well as managing commercial outlets through concessions to third parties.

Development since the 2000s

In April 2004, GESAP was awarded UNI ISO 9001/2000 (Vision 2000) certification. The company had already received certification for its services and processes in the handling sector and this too was renewed by the certification body, TÜV, in December 2006. On 30 May 2004, ENAC awarded GESAP an "airport certificate" in recognition of the airport's full conformity with the regulations set down in ENAC's "regulations for the construction and management of airports". On 24 May 2007 GESAP has obtained the renewal of the airport certificate until 30 May 2010. Today, after having recently transferred its handling sector to a controlled company, GH Palermo, GESAP is awaiting a ministerial decree that will grant it a forty-year concession for the total management of the airport. This comes after the deliberation of ENAC's board of directors on 1 March 2005 that was officialised in a convention signed on 17 November 2006. In June 2005,

Eurofly Eurofly was a privately owned airline based in Milan, Italy. Listed on MTA Stock Exchange and controlled by Meridiana, it was Italy's leading carrier in the leisure flights market and mainly operated international, medium to long haul, point-t ...

launched seasonal flights from Palermo to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

using Airbus A330s. The company later merged with Meridiana to create Meridiana Fly, which continued to operate the transatlantic service. However, as a result of the airline's decision to rebrand as Air Italy, the route ended in October 2017.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Palermo Airport:

Statistics

Accidents and incidents

* On 5 May 1972,

Alitalia Flight 112 Alitalia Flight 112 was a scheduled flight from Leonardo da Vinci Airport, in Rome, Italy, to Palermo International Airport in Palermo, Italy, with 115 on board. On 5 May 1972, it crashed into Mount Longa, about southwest of Palermo while on ...

flew into Mt. Longa on approach to Palermo Airport. All 115 aboard were killed. * On 23 December 1978,

Alitalia Flight 4128 Alitalia Flight 4128 was a scheduled flight from Leonardo da Vinci Airport, in Rome, Italy, to Palermo International Airport in Palermo, Italy, with 129 on board. On December 23, 1978, it crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea about north of Palermo wh ...

crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea while on approach to Palermo Airport. * On 6 August 2005,

Tuninter Flight 1153 Tuninter Flight 1153 (UG1153/TUX1153) was a Tuninter Airlines international flight from Bari International Airport in Bari, Italy, to Djerba-Zarzis Airport in Djerba, Tunisia. On 6 August 2005, the Tuninter ATR 72 ditched into the Mediterrane ...

, an

ATR 72 The ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop, short-haul regional airliner developed and produced in France and Italy by aircraft manufacturer ATR (french: Avions de transport régional or it, Aerei da Trasporto Regionale), a joint venture formed ...

–500, ran out of fuel while en route and ditched about 18 miles from the city of Palermo. 16 of the 39 people on board died. * On 24 September 2010, Wind Jet Flight 243, operated by Airbus A319-132 EI-EDM, landed short of the runway after encountering a

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are some ...

and

windshear Wind shear (or windshear), sometimes referred to as wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Atmospheric wind shear is normally described as either vertical or horizonta ...

on approach. The aircraft was substantially damaged when it impacted the localiser. Both main undercarriage sets collapsed and the aircraft was evacuated by the emergency slides. Around 20 passengers were injured in the evacuation.

Ground transport

Train

The airport's railway facility,

Punta Raisi railway station Punta Raisi railway station ( it, Stazione di Punta Raisi), is located within Palermo Airport ( it, Aeroporto di Palermo "Falcone e Borsellino") (IATA code: PMO) in Cinisi, near Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Opened in 2004, the station is the northwe ...

, is the northwestern terminus of Palermo metropolitan railway service. It links the airport with

Palermo Centrale railway station Palermo Centrale is the main railway station of the Italian city of Palermo, capital of Sicily. It is one of the most important " FS" stations of Italy. Along with Catania Centrale, Messina Centrale and Syracuse it is one of the most importa ...

. A typical timetable on work days is a train every 30 minutes in each direction between early morning and around 10.00 pm.

Bus

There are several private bus companies, which stop at the bus station outside the terminal building and connect the airport with nearby Palermo city. There are further connections to/from Palermo, Catania, Messina and rest of