03:23 pm - Thursday
Passed away Ilario Testa, "Father" of Bergamo-Orio airport
Bergamo, Italy - President of the hub until 2008
(WAPA) - Died suddenly yesterday in Madonna di Campiglio, Trentino, Ilario Testa, 85 years. His name remains linked - in regard to our sector - to the rise and development of Orio al Serio airport.
President of the management company of the airport, the Sacbo, from 1993 to 2008. The same years which saw the takeoff of Bergamo, with Ryanair entering the carriers park in the first years of this century / millennium.
After two years of negotiations with the street-wise Irish, O'Leary's carrier has even made of Orio its main hub in Italy.
Testa, sensing the potential of low cost flights (in this he was not unique, but certainly it was he who showed a better yield in this intuition) led Bergamo - from little more than a marginal military airport with a mild national civilian traffic - to be now the third Italian airport. (Avionews)
(00500)
Direttore Clara Moschini