From 10 August, the fares of maritime connections with the smaller Sicilian islands will increase by 18%.
The new price list, applied to the lines managed under the Siremar SNS state agreement, will affect all categories of users: passengers, vehicles, residents and commercial vehicles.
Therefore, it will not only increase the price of a trip. The increase in fares for commercial vehicles will inevitably end up affecting the cost of goods, supplies, economic activities and, ultimately, the prices borne by families living on the islands.
The reason indicated by the company is the continuing increase in operating costs, in particular fuel, together with the absence of specific public support measures.
But this is precisely where the political question arises: can the higher cost of an essential public service be passed on once again to the communities that cannot choose whether or not to use that service?
You pay more, without better service
The increase appears even more difficult to accept when compared to the quality of the service offered.
Residents, businesses and visitors are not asked to pay 18% more in exchange for new ships, reduced journey times, increased reliability or better travel conditions.
Connections continue to be made even with a fleet that is partly very old, consisting of units built several decades ago.
It does not mean that an elderly ship is necessarily unsafe: safety depends on maintenance, controls and certifications. The problem is another.
It is difficult to imagine the future of mobility on the smaller islands by entrusting it for years to vehicles conceived in another era, while citizens are constantly asked to bear higher costs.
Territorial continuity should mean modern, efficient, less polluting ships, regular connections throughout the year, reasonable times and adequate travel conditions.
The National Airports Plan also leaves the same problem open
The issue does not only concern the sea.
The new National Airports Plan 2026-2035, presented by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, indicates among its objectives the strengthening of connectivity, accessibility and integration of the Italian airport system.
Pantelleria is still among the airports of national interest.
But this recognition is nothing new: the Pantelleria airport already possessed this qualification in the previous airport structure.
The real question is to understand what is concretely envisaged for the future of Pantelleria airport.
And here emerge the same questions that we are asking today about maritime connections.
The Plan does not appear to have a specific strategy for the development of the Pantelleria airport: no dedicated investments, new routes, a programme of seasonal adjustment of connections or a precise operational function capable of transforming the airport into a real tool for development and territorial continuity.
Pantelleria is included in the airport system of eastern Sicily together with Catania and Comiso, a location that appears unintuitive and that is not accompanied by a convincing strategic explanation.
When the Plan then moves from classifications to operational prospects, Pantelleria remains substantially on the margins.
The risk, therefore, is obvious: being present in national maps and documents without this producing better connections for those who live on the island.
Sea and sky are the same problem
For an island like Pantelleria there are not two separate issues, that of ferries and that of the airport.
There is only one problem: territorial continuity.
The Pantelleria citizen does not have a motorway or railway to reach the rest of the country.
It can only leave by sea or by air.
For this reason, ships and planes cannot be considered simply market services. They are essential infrastructures to exercise fundamental rights: work, study, treatment, meet one’s family, move goods, carry out an economic activity.
If maritime transport becomes progressively more expensive and air transport remains devoid of a truly adequate development strategy and territorial continuity, the disadvantage of insularity increases instead of decreasing.
Europe points in the opposite direction
All this comes just weeks after the adoption, on 10 June 2026, of the new European Union Strategy for Islands.
For the first time, the European Commission has comprehensively recognised that insularity produces additional structural costs: greater difficulties in connecting, higher transport costs, less accessibility to services, greater economic vulnerability and a higher cost of living.
The European Strategy explicitly indicates the need to ensure reliable and accessible connections throughout the year and recalls that states can use public service obligations, compensation to companies and aid for island inhabitants.
The principle that emerges is simple: the cost of insularity must be offset by public policies, not passed on to the citizens who live on the islands.
And it is precisely on this point that the contradiction is evident today.
Europe is calling for the disadvantages of insularity to be reduced.
The National Airports Plan formally recognizes Pantelleria as an airport of national interest.
And at the same time, from 10 August, residents, businesses and goods will have to pay 18% more to reach the island by sea.
Three institutional levels seem to speak different languages.
In four years, the cost is likely to have more than doubled
According to data released by the representative organizations of the smaller islands, the price increases that have occurred in recent years had already brought maritime rates to about 72% higher than 2022 levels.
Applying the new 18% increase to amounts already increased by 72%, the cumulative increase would reach about 103%.
In just over four years, therefore, the cost of maritime connections would have more than doubled.
We are no longer faced with a simple tariff adjustment.
We are facing a progressive increase in the cost of insularity.
And this cost affects freedom of movement, the competitiveness of businesses, tourism, the prices of goods and the very possibility of choosing to live permanently in Pantelleria.
Territorial continuity must become a single policy
The time has come to stop dealing with each emergency separately.
One day we discuss the price of ferries.
Another of the flights.
Yet another from the airport.
But for Pantelleria they are parts of the same question.
The Dammuso Circle believes that a true integrated plan for mobility and territorial continuity of Pantelleria is necessary, in which maritime transport and air transport are considered together and planned according to the needs of residents, businesses and the development of the island.
You need to:
- intervene on the new increase in maritime tariffs and identify adequate public compensation instruments;
- protect in particular the rates of residents;
- provide for specific measures for the transport of goods;
- define a certain and financed fleet renewal program;
- clarify what concrete development the National Airports Plan 2026-2035 envisages for Pantelleria;
- to guarantee a stable, adequate and truly responsive air territorial continuity to the needs of the island;
- coordinating national and regional policies with the new European Strategy for Islands;
- permanently involve the Municipality and the local community in decisions concerning connections.
Being an island cannot mean having fewer possibilities to move and having to pay more and more to do so.
It is not enough for Pantelleria to appear in the National Airport Plan or for the islands to finally be recognized in a European Strategy.
These awards must have concrete consequences.
More modern ships, better connections, effective air and sea continuity and sustainable costs.
Otherwise we will continue to have Pantelleria in plans and documents, but increasingly distant in real life.