Venice Marco Polo Airport

Venice Marco Polo Airport is the third-busiest airport in Italy after Rome Fiumicino (FCO) and Milan Malpensa (MXP), and the primary gateway to the Venice, Treviso, and greater Veneto regions as well as the eastern approach to the Dolomites. Located on the mainland edge of the Venetian Lagoon at Tessera, 5 mi (8 km) north of Venice's historic center at just 7 ft (2 m) elevation, VCE handles 164 routes across 98 destinations through 71 airlines — one of the highest airline counts of any European airport its size, reflecting Venice's position as both a primary long-haul tourism destination and a dense short-haul European-city connector. No single carrier dominates VCE. Volotea bases a substantial operation here, and easyJet, Wizz Air, ITA Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, Air France, British Airways, Iberia, Swiss, Austrian, SAS, Finnair, LOT, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad, United, Delta, American, and Air Canada all operate daily service depending on season. Ryanair's operations focus on the nearby Treviso airport (TSF). Transatlantic service to New York–JFK, Newark, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Montreal gives Venice year-round nonstop North American connectivity, with seasonal widebody service expanding substantially from May through October when cruise traffic and leisure demand peak. Two parallel asphalt runways — 04R/22L at 10,827 ft (3,300 m) and 04L/22R at 9,121 ft (2,780 m) — support full widebody operations including A380 and 747 freighters. A single unified terminal, expanded in stages through the 2010s, houses all commercial traffic, with a dedicated water-bus dock reached by a 10-minute covered walkway directly connecting the airport to the Venetian lagoon transit network. This is VCE's signature infrastructure feature: no other major European airport offers direct water-borne public transport to the city center, and the Alilaguna ferries provide a uniquely scenic arrival experience over the lagoon. The airport handled over 11.5M passengers in 2024, with a record share of intercontinental widebody flights and significant cruise-related shoulder-season demand.