Ciampino Airport

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Ciampino Airport
IATA: CIA - ICAO: LIRA
Summary
Airport type		Joint (Civil and Military)
Serves		Rome
Elevation AMSL		427 ft (130 m)
Coordinates		41°47′57.70″N, 12°35′41.77″E
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
15/33	7,242	2,207	Asphalt

Ciampino Airport (Italian: Aeroporto di Roma-Ciampino) or Giovan Battista Pastine Airport (IATA: CIA, ICAO: LIRA) is a joint civilian, commercial and military airport near Rome in Italy. The airport is situated 15 km south-west Rome downtown, just outside the Greater Ring Junction (Italian: Grande Raccordo Anulare) the circular motorway around the central city. Until 1960 Ciampino was the main airport of Rome, before the construction of Leonardo Da Vinci airport in Fiumicino. It actually serves both as military airbase and commercial air traffic airport. Due to the growth of low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, Easyjet, Sterling, Hapag Lloyd Express, Wizz Air etc. Ciampino Airport became a popular alternative to the heavily congested Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport.

Ciampino is quite small, due to the short distance from the city suburbs, but is one of the busiests airports in Italy. The total passenger traffic in 2005 rose 4.235.776 million (65,7% more than 2004, the higher rate of growth in Italy). There are plans to extend the total area of the terminals.

[edit] Ground Transportation

COTRAL/Schiaffini [1] operate buses from outside the terminal building to Anagnina metro station, costing €1. A metro ticket to central Rome costs another €1.

There are also buses at the same price to Ciampino local train station, from where a train to Rome Termini station costs €2. Train tickets must be bought from a newsagent and stamped before boarding the train. Both bus routes operate roughly every hour or 30 minutes during the Italian work day (8-12 and 16-20), and you should count on at least 45 minutes travel time for either route. Italian trains are notoriously late, and the metro can get very crowded.

Schiaffini also run direct buses to Termini station for €5 one-way, taking 40 minutes, but with far fewer departures than Terravision (see below). These buses are not mentioned on the airport website yet, but you can find them on Schiaffini's own site.

Terravision [2] run a direct bus service to Termini. The price is €8 one-way or €13.50 return, taking 40 minutes (about 20 services a day). Despite timing buses to connect with flights, they ask passengers on the return trip from Termini to board the bus 2.5 hours before their flight's departure time. Terravision also offers buses from Fiumicino airport to Termini, and a transfer bus between the two airports.

BusShuttle run a similar service to Terravision. Their stop near Termini is about 20 metres up the road from Terravision's. Cost is €6 for a single.

The price quote on a taxi ride to Termini may be as high as €80 though a fair price should be around €35-40. Always negotiate the total price including luggage supplements (tutto incluso) before boarding the taxi!

Rental cars are available in the airport terminal from all the usual companies.

[edit] Airlines and destinations

Blue Air (Bucharest-Baneasa, Bacău [starts Jan. 2007])
Centralwings (Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Lodz)
easyJet (Basel/Mullhouse, Belfast, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bristol, Dortmund, East Midlands, Geneva, London-Gatwick, Madrid [starts February 16, 2007], Newcastle, Paris-Orly)
FlyMe (Gothenburg-Landvetter)
HLX.com (Hanover)
Lviv Airlines (Lviv)
Norwegian Air Shuttle (Oslo, Warsaw)
Ryanair (Alghero, Brussels-Charleroi, Dublin, East Midlands, Eindhoven, Girona, Glasgow-Prestwick, Hahn, Karlsruhe Baden, Liverpool, London-Stansted, London-Luton, Madrid [starts 1 March, 2007], Milan-Orio al Serio, Paris-Beauvais, Santander, Santiago de Compostela, Shannon, Stockholm-Skavsta, Treviso, Valencia, Verona, Weeze)
Sterling (Billund, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm-Arlanda)
Tarom Cargo
Wizz Air (Bucharest-Baneasa, Budapest, Katowice, Targu Mures [starts January 15, 2007])