After the -45.0% decline in 2020 caused by the impact on the sector of the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and after the recovery of +16.4% recorded the following year with the easing of of the restrictions adopted to contain the health crisis worldwide, in 2022 the increase in passenger traffic in ports of the European Union has been more substantial, being An increase of +30.1% compared to the previous year was marked. A positive development that has been such in all the main EU maritime states with the exception of Italy, where the increase in of cruise traffic was not enough to compensate for the the decline in passenger traffic on maritime services Regular.

Eurostat announced today that in 2022 the total traffic of passengers was 348.6 million people compared to 267.9 million in the previous year. The only traffic handled by the regular services were 338.7 million passengers (+27.8%), while that of cruises was 9.9 million of passengers (+256.4%).

Last year, passenger traffic in all major EU cruise nations posted double-digit increases percentages, while in Italy, whose ports have handled 53.8 million passengers, a decrease of -7.0% on 2021, with 51.1 million passengers of the regular services, which recorded a decrease of -10.2%, while 2.7 million cruise passengers recorded a growth of +178.0%.

Last year Messina was still the most The European Union's busiest airport with 9.2 million passengers handled (+10.9%).