ITALY. Milan Malpensa Airport handled a record 24.6 million passengers in 2018, its highest annual throughput and a rise of 11.5% on the previous year.
The airport, which like Milan Linate is managed by SEA Group, surpassed its previous high of 23.7 million, set in 2007.
In a statement, the airport said it hoped to breach the 25 million mark in 2019, “pushing [Milan Malpensa] into the top league of European airports”.
Last year, Milan Malpensa was served by 105 airlines collectively reaching 209 destinations.
The airport partly attributed the sharp rise in passenger numbers to Air Italy, which uses Malpensa as its base. It added that its development prospects were “robust”.
New connections to New York and Miami in the USA and Delhi and Mumbai in India also helped to raise throughput, as did new domestic routes to Rome, Naples, Lamezia Terme, Catania, Palermo and Olbia.
This year, new flights are planned to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago in the USA and Toronto in Canada.
SEA VP Aviation Business Development Andrea Tucci said: “Despite some of the new destinations having had an annual O&D [origin and destination] demand of [more than] 100,000 travellers…they had not been served by any airline for a decade.”
He added that domestic, German, Spanish, American, Chinese and Canadian markets had been among the fastest-growing for the airport last year.
Tucci said: “2018 gave a boost to our intercontinental traffic, growing by 7.8%, and we expect some further development in the short-term.”
He pointed out that the local Lombardy region is the wealthiest in Italy. “[Its] 10 million inhabitants…need and deserve a true hub and spoke carrier,” he argued. “Malpensa was built as a hub airport and it is exciting to see it being used in that way again.”
Milan’s second airport, Linate, handled 9.2 million passengers in 2018, making it the fifth-busiest airport in Italy compared to Malpensa, the second-busiest. Rome Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino remained the busiest airport in the country.
