Olbia: an airport and Sardinia's main port

Olbia Costa Smeralda (OLB) handled 4,161,572¹ passengers in 2025, 7.2% more than in 2024, and the town is also Sardinia's main sea gateway.

OLB, in figures

Olbia Costa Smeralda (IATA OLB, ICAO LIEO) ranked 14th in Italy in 2025 with 4,161,572¹ passengers, operated by GEASAR. Traffic rose 7.2% on 2024.

The operator's own monthly and cumulative figures show a strongly seasonal airport. The source does not quantify how much of the year's traffic lands in summer, so we give the annual number and not a peak we would have to estimate.

The port next door, at its peak

Over the Ferragosto weekend of August 14 and 15, 2026, Olbia's port handled more than 47,000² passengers and over 16,000² vehicles in 48 hours, with 19 ferries at the quay. The whole Sardinian port system moved about 100,000² passengers in the same two days.

The port authority published those as planned figures before the weekend, and they describe 48 hours at the top of the season, not a year. They are still the clearest measure of what the town is like in mid-August, on land and at sea.

Plane or ferry

Olbia is one of 5 main passenger ports for crossings to the mainland, together with Golfo Aranci, Porto Torres, Cagliari and Arbatax. All are managed by the Sardinian port system authority.

The practical split is simple: the ferry brings your own car, the plane leaves it at home. Routes, ports and the Civitavecchia crossing are on ferries to Sardinia.

Olbia or Cagliari

Cagliari Elmas handled 5,254,433³ passengers in 2025, more than Olbia, but grew only 1.8% against Olbia's 7.2%. The two airports sit at opposite ends of the island.

ENAC lists a third Sardinian code, AHO for Alghero Fertilia, in the northwest. Its 2025 traffic is not in our verified set. Cagliari's train into town is covered on the Cagliari airport page.

The transfer we could not verify

The bus link from Olbia airport to the town center and the ferry port has no verified fare, frequency or journey time in our fact set. This page therefore prints none.

If you are connecting to a ferry on a summer weekend, plan the transfer with the operator's timetable in hand and a generous margin, because the port is at its fullest exactly when the airport is.

The island as a whole, with its parks and coast, is on the Sardinia region page.

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