Get Ready for Airport Disruptions If You're Going to Milan in 2019
If you are planning to visit Milan in the summer of 2019, or just to transit through its airports, you are in for possible disruptions. Linate airport (LIN) will be closed for renovations from July 27 to October 27 of next year, right in the middle of the busy summer holiday traffic peak.
According to Flight Service Bureau, authorities will decide shortly how to allocate flights to other airports. Most of them are expected to go to Malpensa (MXP), the main long-haul airport for Milan, which handled 22 million passengers in 2017, compared with nine million at Linate.
Linate is much closer to the city — less than five miles from downtown — while Malpensa is 40 miles away, making the former a favorite among business passengers who are a quick taxi ride away from Milan's central business district.
With about 300 takeoffs and landings and 26,000 passengers per day at LIN, that's a lot of aircraft and passenger movement to accommodate. The good news is that the Milan airport system has a third airport available to take some of the Linate flights: Orio al Serio (BGY), which although technically serving the city of Bergamo, is used in practice by many Milanese. Ryanair, the biggest low-fare airline in Europe, maintains a large base at BGY. The biggest carrier at LIN is Alitalia.
The renovations will include repaving LIN's single, 8,000-foot runway, as well as work in the passenger terminal. Work will continue on extending the subway to Linate by 2021. Currently, buses are the only public transport option available for LIN and BGY, while MXP can be reached by train from Milan.
If you're planning to take a train to or from Milan during the LIN closure period, you should also account for an expected spike in traffic from people who are unable to fly.
