Fiumicino 10 April 2017 – As and from today, Alipay is operative at Fiumicino. This is China’s most popular online payment App, with over 450 million active users and is operated by Ant Financial Services Group, a related company of Alibaba Group.
The starting point of the initiative is the Ermenegildo Zegna store in boarding area E, the 90,000 square metre infrastructure for extra – Schengen flights, through which pass Chinese passengers arriving and departing from Rome – and will gradually involve all the other airport shops.

The first digital payment made with Alipay occurred this morning at around 11 am. The buyer was a Chinese passenger, who received a special plaque of thanks from the CEO of Aeroporti di Roma, Ugo de Carolis, from the CEO of Lagardère Travel Retail Italy, Lucio Rossetto, from the Manager for Central Italy of Unicredit, Giovanni Forestiero and from the Italian Market Development Manager of Alipay, Pietro Candela.

Fiumicino has therefore become the first Italian airport – and among the first at international level – to welcome Alipay, a payment system tailored to the needs of Chinese passengers, thereby further strengthening its European record for attracting and welcoming such an important segment of passengers.

The Leonardo da Vinci Airport is the European hub with most flights from and to China.
Ten Greater China destinations are directly linked to Rome, thanks to seven airlines. In 2016, over 680,000 passengers flew between the Capital and the Greater China area, 30% more than in 2015 (480,000 to/from China, + 51% compared to 2015). In the first quarter of 2017, traffic from/to China grew by 31% compared to the same period of last year.

As and from today, the new boarding area E, where a personal shopper service is already available, with a dedicated Chinese language guide book for airport purchases, represents an even more welcome setting for shopping. According to statistics, particularly appreciated by oriental travellers in the airport are the Made in Italy fashion products and the Mediterranean food and wine specialities.

Aeroporti di Roma, a Company of the Atlantia Group, manages and develops the airports of Roma Fiumicino and Ciampino and performs other activities related and complementary to airport management. Fiumicino operates through four passenger terminals. It is dedicated to business and leisure clients on domestic, international and intercontinental routes; Ciampino is mainly used by low-cost airlines, express-couriers and for General Aviation activities. In 2016 ADR recorded, as airport system, over 47 million passengers with more than 230 world destinations reachable from Rome thanks to about 100 airlines operating through the two airports.

UniCredit is a sound Pan-European Group with a simple commercial bank model and a perfectly integrated Corporate & Investment Banking platform, which places at the disposal of its 25 million customers a single network in Western and Central-Eastern Europe. UniCredit offers local skills as well as a single international network able to accompany and support its large client base at global level, through leading banks in 14 countries and a network which extends to 18 other countries worldwide. The banks of the UniCredit Group occupy lead positions in Italy, Germany, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Serbia,  Slovakia,  Slovenia, Hungary and Turkey.
Italy represents a strategic market for UniCredit and accounts for 48% of the Group’s earnings. Here, UniCredit has investments amounting to about 185 billion euro in favour of about 8 million clients made up of families and companies, and offers a comprehensive range of advisory and bank services, diversified according to the specific needs of its clients.

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Elena Chiti
Lagardère Travel Retail Italy
+39 3451647978
e.chiti@lagardere-tr.it