Fiumicino, June 18th, 2021 – Aeroporti di Roma announces today its new partnership  with the global innovation platform “Plug and Play Tech Center”, aimed at supporting the deployment of the company’s unique open innovation strategy. Thanks to this partnership, ADR will have the opportunity to increase the experimentation of highly innovative solutions and benefit from ideas that can improve processes for passengers and airlines.

The collaboration has been presented during Plug and Play’s Vienna Expo Day, a bi-annual tech-trend summit dedicated to explore the latest tech-implementations and opportunities in the field of Travel and Smart Cities.

 “Our path to pursue the most innovative strategies starts from within our business, through the implementation of a new governance model with a dedicated committee and the broad involvement of the whole organization; the partnership with Plug and Play further testifies to our raising commitment towards innovation, which is key to the future of our business, and allows us to explore open innovation opportunities within the start-up world as well,” Marco Troncone, CEO of Aeroporti di Roma, commented. “Indeed, the introduction of new digital technologies in the airport management will allow us to increase our competitiveness, further improve the experience of our passengers, reduce costs and seize new business opportunities, in addition to the significant advantages provided by innovative technologies in terms of safety and security.”

The overriding goals of the partnership with Plug and Play (PnP) are to identify new innovative digital solutions and extend the scope of the collaboration beyond Rome airport, providing to other European and international hubs a unique opportunity to develop a network based on sharing innovative ideas. In this context, Aeroporti di Roma acts as a facilitator for open innovation, making a fruitful use of international partnerships and the skills developed internally; indeed, ADR has selected a group of "innovators" among its employees – who have been given the opportunity to further specialize thanks to an executive masters course at Politecnico Milano – and is working at the development of an incubator within the Terminal, which will be operational from next year.

The choice of the US company Plug and Play Tech Center as a partner reflects ADR's approach: PnP has created the world’s largest start-ups’ network, spanning over 35,000 start-ups, with 500 official corporate partners – with a strong focus of the travel sector.

“We are very proud to announce this new partnership with Aeroporti di Roma,” says Benjamin Kloss, Director & Head of Ventures of Plug and Play Austria, about the newly forged partnership. “As one of the Europe’s busiest and most important airports, which won ACI’s Best Airport Award for three consecutive years, and with an incredibly ambitious and well-designed innovation strategy, ADR is the perfect addition to our travel platform and airport innovation eco-system.”

Aeroporti di Roma, an Atlantia Group company, manages Rome Fiumicino and Ciampino airports and carries out other business activities relating to airport management. Fiumicino has two passenger terminals and is dedicated to business and leisure customers on national, international and intercontinental routes; Ciampino is mainly used by low-cost airlines, express-couriers and General Aviation activities. In 2019 ADR recorded, as an airport system, 49.4 million passengers with over 240 destinations worldwide reachable from Rome, thanks to approximately 100 airlines operating at the two airports (In 2020, following the effects caused by Covid-19 on air transport, Fiumicino airport recorded just 9.8 million passengers while Ciampino airport ended the year with 1.6 million passengers). In 2020, Airports Council International Europe awarded Fiumicino’s Leonardo da Vinci airport with the “Best Airport Award 2020”. For the third year running, Leonardo da Vinci airport confirmed its position as the number one European hub with over 40 million passengers. The award adds to the recognition of Airports Council International World which, in 2020, presented Leonardo da Vinci airport with the “Airport Service Quality 2019” award for the third consecutive year as Europe’s most appreciated airport among hubs with more than 40 million passengers. ADR’s management capacity is also confirmed by the awards received during 2019 from Skytrax, the leading international rating and assessment company for the airport sector, which confirmed the 4 Skytrax stars obtained by Fiumicino in 2017.