Catania: Sicily's biggest airport, and the €4 bus

Catania Fontanarossa is the busiest airport in Sicily, with 12,369,485¹ passengers in 2025, and the cheapest way out of it is the €4 Alibus, which no ordinary city ticket will cover.

Fontanarossa: 12,369,485 passengers, fifth in Italy

Catania Fontanarossa (IATA code CTA) recorded 12,369,485¹ passengers in 2025, 0.2% more than in 2024, fifth in the national ranking and clearly ahead of Palermo at 9.22¹ million.

Flat growth after several strong years is the number to read. Traffic is not shrinking, but the airport is running close to what it can handle, which shows up as queues at peak hours rather than as cancelled routes.

The Alibus: €4, 90 minutes, and its own rules

AMT's Alibus is the urban link between the terminal and the city. The ticket costs €4, lasts 90 minutes and can also be used on other AMT urban lines within that window.

Where it bites is the fine print. Ordinary AMT tickets, the FCE metro tickets and standard season passes are not valid on this line, so a weekly pass bought in town does not get you to the plane.

Buy on board in cash or by card, on the AMT Catania app, at a licensed reseller or at a partner hotel. AMT does not publish the frequency, the running time or the first and last departure on that page, so allow more time than a fixed timetable would let you.

Taormina: a coach every 30 minutes, and a station in the wrong place

Interbus runs direct coaches between Fontanarossa and Taormina every 30 minutes (2026), and this is the connection most people use without a car.

The reason is geography. Taormina-Giardini railway station is down at the shore, below the old town on its terrace, so arriving by train leaves you with a climb or a second bus. The coach goes up.

Interbus states the frequency on its home page but its route pages do not carry the fare or the journey time, so neither is stated here. The position of the station is common knowledge rather than something confirmed on an official page, and we flag it as such.

Etna from the south: 1,920 to 3,000 meters, in stages

The Etna cable car, the only one on the volcano, starts at Rifugio Sapienza at 1,920 meters on the south side and rises to 2,500⁴ meters. Above that the Tour 3000⁴ uses 4x4 buses, replaced by snowcats in winter, up to about 2,800⁴ meters, then a guided walk to 3,000⁴ meters.

The staging matters when you plan the day from the airport. Rifugio Sapienza is a drive or a coach ride above Nicolosi, so an Etna morning and a Taormina afternoon are two different directions out of the same terminal.

Prices and running hours are the gap: the operator publishes the altitudes but sends every ticket page to a booking engine, so no fare appears here. See Catania, things to do and Etna.

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