Rimini, September 1, 2026 – The airport of Rimini continues to grow. There were 326 thousand passengers from January to July (+40%), and the goal is to close the year with about 650 thousand passengers. Things are not going so well in Forlì: just over 50 thousand passengers in the first 7 months, down 20%. “We need to strengthen the Romagna strategy and work on synergy between the territories. For this reason,” said Gian Luca Zattini, mayor of Forlì, “our airport should be promoted as the airport of Forlì and Ravenna.” Zattini will soon meet Alessandro Barattoni, mayor of Ravenna. But the project is already taking off. And it infuriates the people of Rimini. They see yet another air war on the horizon, despite Governor Michele de Pascale working (for months) on a regional airport plan.
A regional airport system
“Having a regional airport system is the goal our Region is working on, and well,” says Giulia Corazzi, provincial secretary of the Pd – “Frankly, it doesn’t seem to me that the statements of the mayor of Forlì go in this direction: I have many doubts, since he only tries to find synergies with nearby Ravenna, without any consideration for the whole Romagna.” “The airport of Rimini – adds Corazzi – continues to grow thanks to the union between management companies, Apt and local authorities, with the Municipality of Rimini leading. Instead, Zattini, perhaps because he is more in difficulty, is looking for other solutions.”
The center-right’s jab
Corazzi is certain that “already in the coming weeks President de Pascale and Tourism Councillor Roberta Frisoni will take stock of the regional airport system, also in light of Forlì’s statements.” Then the jab at the center-right, which “continues to think with the usual scheme: keep everyone happy by saying everything they want to hear, but if party reasoning leads to an opposite outcome then even better.”
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The data
In reality, for Nicola Marcello, councilor and provincial coordinator of Brothers of Italy, “changing the name of the Forlì airport, perhaps with the intent to position itself as the airport of Romagna, will serve little. The data say it: the real airport of Romagna is Rimini, which is growing again, boasts an important history, and is in a central area. In any case, waging war between small airports benefits no one, on the contrary…” Antonio Barboni, secretary of Forza Italia, thinks the same. He sinks Zattini’s “crazy idea”: “Those who are desperate try any way to save themselves. Small airports, if they don’t play as a team, will never manage to grow.” That said, “Rimini is the engine of tourism, not Ravenna or Forlì. And the ‘Fellini’ is posting numbers that the ‘Ridolfi’ can only dream of.”
