Summer 2026 at Milan airports
New routes, more frequencies, increasingly well-finished services and an offer that is becoming even wider and more articulated: Summer 2026 marks a new step forward for Milan's airports. Milan Malpensa consolidates its international vocation with significant development, especially on long-haul flights, while Milan Linate confirms its role as a fast, functional city airport particularly appreciated by frequent travellers. In this interview, Aldo Schmid, Head of Aviation Business Development at SEA Milan Airports, talks about the news of the summer season and explains why today Malpensa and Linate represent two different, but increasingly complementary, airports serving passengers in Northern Italy.
MILAN MALPENSA
During Summer 2026, how many countries will you connect, how many destinations will be reachable and how many airlines will operate at the airport?
"During Summer 2026, Milan Malpensa will connect 200 airports in 79 countries, including 54 long-haul airports, with 85 airlines operating at the airport. These are very solid numbers, growing, which confirm the increasingly central role of Malpensa and which are also accompanied by several interesting innovations for passengers".
What will be the main news of Summer 2026 from Malpensa in terms of new destinations reachable and carriers involved?
"The main innovations of the Summer 2026 at Milan Malpensa are numerous and particularly relevant, especially on the long haul. Among the most significant is the return of American Airlines to Miami, which joins the already operated connections to New York JFK and Philadelphia, inaugurated last year with excellent results. The new route to Miami will be operated with daily flights and represents, according to SEA, an important sign of confidence in Malpensa by the US carrier.
Another important novelty is the new Air China connection to the new Beijing Daxing airport, operational from June with a daily flight. The service will complement the connection already active on Beijing Capital and will further strengthen Malpensa's role as a European gateway. Unlike what happens at other airports, in the case of Milan the frequencies at the new airport will be entirely additional, bringing Air China to reach a total of 27-28 weekly flights at the airport. Also on the long-haul route, Asiana Airlines will also enter Summer 2026 with the new flight to Seoul operated three times a week, in addition to the four frequencies already offered by Korean Air. This is also a significant entry from a qualitative point of view, since Asiana is one of the ten Skytrax Five Star companies in the world. With its arrival, Malpensa rises to eight Five Star carriers, placing it at the top of Europe together with Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt.
Milan Malpensa confirms itself as a reference airport for long-haul international connections. For which types of travel and passengers will it be particularly strategic in Summer 2026?
"The international geopolitical context is certainly not the most favorable, especially for some sensitive areas such as the Gulf countries. However, Malpensa can count on a network that is now very diversified, distributed over several continents and on several strategic markets, and this allows the airport to mitigate at least in part the effects of international criticalities, while maintaining interesting results. To understand which segments and passengers Malpensa will be particularly strategic for in Summer 2026, we can look at the destinations that will record the most significant growth in terms of capacity offered by airlines".
"Among these, Seoul stands out first of all, which will see a doubling of the available places. Boston will also be very relevant, approaching an increase of more than 80%, as well as Taipei, which will grow by about 75%. Added to these is Beijing, which, considering the metropolitan area as a whole, will record an increase of close to 60% thanks also to the new connection. Another important development concerns Vietnam: Vietnam Airlines had started its flight from Malpensa only in July last year, while now the connection will be present for a longer seasonal span, with a consequent significant increase in the overall capacity available during the summer. This is a very interesting market, also because Malpensa is among the few airports in Europe to offer this destination with direct connections. Overall, therefore, Malpensa will be particularly strategic for long-haul leisure passengers, for those traveling to Asia and North America and for all those looking for a broad, direct and diversified international offer, capable of maintaining solidity and growth prospects even in a complex geopolitical phase".
For an articulated airport with a very large network like Malpensa, how important is it today to offer passengers a fluid and well-organized experience? How is the airport structured to guarantee it?
"For an articulated airport with such a wide network as Malpensa, offering passengers a fluid, well-organized and efficient experience is essential today. In an airport of this size, it is not only the number of connections that counts, but also the ability to accompany the passenger at all stages of the journey with reliable services and effective flow management. Precisely for this reason, work continues on several fronts, from the most sensitive operational aspects, such as passport controls and airport accessibility, to the overall quality of the stay at the airport. The goal is to make the experience increasingly smooth and up to the expectations of an international audience, which today compares Malpensa with the major European and Asian hubs. In this perspective, services also matter a lot: lounges, for example, are an important element of the customer experience, as are the retail and food & beverage offer. The presence of art, exhibitions and cultural content in the terminals also contributes to making the passengers' stay more pleasant and distinctive. Malpensa must therefore continue to evolve in this direction: not only as a major international gateway, but also as an airport capable of offering an increasingly complete, well-kept and competitive experience".
"In Summer 2026, no real new destinations are planned from Milan Linate. In fact, the airport operates in a context of very limited capacity, with slots almost entirely allocated and reduced margins for the introduction of new connections.
However, there will be some new services on existing routes. EasyJet will operate Brindisi in the summer peak, a destination already served by ITA Airways, while Eurowings will fly to Düsseldorf, a route that was already present on Linate. More than new destinations, therefore, it is a question of new operators or a different articulation of the offer on existing markets.
Linate is going through a phase of adjustment also linked to the redistribution of slots that took place last year after the merger between ITA Airways and Lufthansa. As part of the measures requested by the competition authorities, ITA had to sell part of the slots, allocated mainly to EasyJet and, to a lesser extent, to the IAG group and Air France-KLM. This is therefore the first summer season fully following that reorganization and it is natural that the companies are still consolidating and testing their network. For this reason, at the moment there are no further significant innovations beyond those already mentioned. However, it is plausible that new developments may emerge in the future, because the evolution of the offer will also depend on the market response. For now, however, Linate is mainly in a phase of consolidation".
For those departing from Linate, which services make the most difference in terms of speed and comfort of the airport experience offered?
"The services that make the most difference are above all those related to the speed and simplicity of the airport experience. We are talking about an airport that, due to the type of traffic and passengers (with a very strong presence of business travellers and frequent flyers), is particularly appreciated precisely for the speed of the route, for the compactness of the spaces and for the ease with which you can get from check-in or controls to the gate. In addition to this, there are all those services that help make the passage through the airport even smoother, such as fast track, automation and, more generally, an organization designed to reduce time and simplify the passenger journey.
For a clientele that also attaches great importance to comfort, lounges and superior quality services naturally count, which at Linate have an even more significant weight precisely because of the profile of users. In this sense, the value of the airport lies in the ability to combine speed, practicality and quality of experience in a particularly effective way".
How do Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate complement each other today to meet the different needs of passengers in the Northern Italian basin?
"Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate complement each other because they offer a very articulated and truly complementary airport system, capable of responding to different travel needs. On the one hand, there is Linate, which due to its location, speed and frequencies is particularly suitable for business customers and those looking for a convenient and immediate stopover; on the other hand, there is Malpensa, which thanks to a much wider and more articulated network represents the reference point for international, leisure and long-haul offerings.
Both airports, although with different roles, are able to serve both business and tourist traffic. Passengers can count on legacy airlines with high frequencies to the main European airports, but also on low-cost carriers that connect a very large number of destinations, including many destinations in the Mediterranean, North Africa, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe, particularly in demand especially in the summer season. Malpensa, in particular, adds a very extensive intercontinental network to this offer, which allows you to directly reach destinations all over the world. It is precisely this breadth of long-haul that makes the Milanese system particularly competitive and complete, because it allows passengers from Northern Italy to find in the same airport basin both the convenience of a city airport like Linate and the depth of network of a large international hub like Malpensa. In this sense, the complementarity between the two airports is a concrete value: these are not alternative airports, but infrastructures that together expand the possibilities of choice and make the overall offer stronger, more flexible and more suitable for different passenger profiles".
If you had to indicate three reasons for choosing to depart from Milan airports in Summer 2026, which ones would you highlight?
"The first is certainly the breadth of the network. We are talking about a very extensive offer, with 79 countries served and a large number of destinations, both in Europe and outside Europe, which allows passengers to easily find the connection that best suits their needs. The second reason is the differentiation of the offer. In fact, very different companies coexist in the Milan airport system: premium carriers, large low-cost carriers with important bases and even more particular products, capable of responding to different needs and targets. The third reason concerns the quality and variety of services at the airport. From the commercial offer to the services designed for passenger comfort, the goal is to offer an increasingly complete, well-finished travel experience suitable for different audiences. In summary, the three key elements are a wide network, a very diversified offer and quality services".
Interview by Angela Trivigno
Avion Tourism Magazine
Photos and visuals: Copyright © Avion Tourism Magazine / Sisterscom.com
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Photo Milan: editorial use: Copyright © Sisterscom.com / Shutterstock
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