Milan Malpensa Airport: Difference between revisions

Main airport serving Milan, Italy

Milan Malpensa Airport Aeroporto di Milano Malpensa “Città di Milano”
Aerial view of Malpensa Airport in 2016
Airport type	Public
Owner	SEA SpA
Operator	SEA Aeroporti di Milano
Serves	Milan metropolitan area
Location	Ferno, Varese
Opened	27 May 1910; 113 years ago (1910-05-27)
Hub for
Focus city for
Elevation AMSL	1,000 ft / 304.8 m
Coordinates	45°37′48″N 8°43′23″E / 45.63000°N 8.72306°E / 45.63000; 8.72306
Website	milanomalpensa-airport.com
Direction Length Surface m ft 17L/35R 3,920 12,861 Asphalt 17R/35L 3,920 12,861 Asphalt
Passengers 21,347,652 Passenger change 21–22 121.9% Aircraft movements 186,626 Movements change 21–22 57.7% Cargo (tons) 721,255 Cargo change 21–22 3.5%
Statistics from Assaeroporti [2]

Milan Malpensa Airport (IATA: MXP, ICAO: LIMC)^[3][4] is the largest international airport in northern Italy, serving Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria, as well as the Swiss Canton of Ticino. The airport is 49 kilometres (30 mi) northwest of Milan,^[5] next to the Ticino river dividing Lombardy and Piedmont.

In 2022, Malpensa Airport handled 21.3 million passengers and was the 23rd busiest airport in Europe in terms of passengers and 2nd busiest airport in Italy in terms of passengers after Rome Fiumicino Airport.^[6] It is the busiest airport in Italy for freight and cargo, handling 721.254 tons of international freight annually (2022).

Malpensa airport is 9th in the world and 6th in Europe for the number of countries served with direct scheduled flights.^[7]

Together with Linate Airport and Orio al Serio Airport, it forms the Milan airport system with 42,2 million passengers in 2022, the largest airport system in Italy by number of passengers.^[8]

The airport was opened in 1909 by Giovanni Agusta and Gianni Caproni to test their aircraft prototypes, before switching to civil operation in 1948.

History

Early years

The site of today’s Malpensa Airport has seen aviation activities for more than 100 years. The first began on 27 May 1910, when the Caproni brothers flew their “flying machine”, the Cal biplane. In the years that followed, many aircraft prototypes took off from the same site; eventually, it was decided to upgrade the farming patch to a more formal airfield. Both Gianni Caproni and Giovanni Agusta established factories on the new site; the airfield soon developed into the largest aircraft production centre in Italy.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the airfield hosted two squadrons of the Regia Aeronautica Italiana (Italian Air Force). In September 1943, Malpensa airfield was taken over by Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe when northern Italy was invaded by Adolf Hitler. Soon after their arrival, the Germans laid the airfield’s first concrete runway.

After the cessation of hostilities during the Second World War, manufacturers and politicians of the Milan and Varese regions, led by banker Benigno Ajroldi of Banca Alto Milanese, restored the airfield. They aimed to make it an industrial fulcrum for the post-war recovery of Italy. The main runway, heavily damaged by German troops as they retreated from northern Italy, was rebuilt and extended to 1,800 metres. A small wooden terminal was constructed to protect goods and passengers from bad weather.

After World War II

Malpensa Airport officially commenced commercial operations on 21 November 1948 as Aeroporto Città di Busto Arsizio, although the Belgian national flag-carrier Sabena had started flying to Brussels from here a year earlier. On 2 February 1950 Trans World Airlines (TWA) became the first company to fly long-haul flights from Malpensa, using Lockheed Constellations on their services to New York Idlewild Airport (now JFK).

A change of ownership occurred in 1952 when the Municipality of Milan took control of the airport’s operator, the Società Aeroporto di Busto Arsizio. The operator’s name was subsequently changed to Società Esercizi Aeroportuali SpA [it] (SEA). After assuming full control, SEA decided to develop Malpensa as an international and intercontinental gateway, whereas Milan’s other airport, Linate Airport, would be tasked with handling only domestic services.

Between 1958 and 1962 a new terminal arrived at Malpensa and the airport’s two parallel runways were extended to 3,915 m (12,844 ft), becoming the longest in Europe at that time. By the early 1960s, however, major European carriers such as British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa and Alitalia had moved the majority of their services to Linate Airport, which was just 11 km east of Milan’s city centre, making it much easier for passengers to reach central Milan. This left Malpensa with just a handful of intercontinental links, charter flights and cargo operations. Malpensa suffered a decline in commercial traffic, with passenger numbers dropping from 525,000 in 1960 to just 331,000 by 1965. It was…