*Translated by Sara Pasino
MALPENSA – In the first week of August 326 thousand passengers will transit from Malpensa airport. These are very hot days in terms of air traffic, as it’s the last big weekend of departures before the turning point of the August, when Italian vacationers will begin to return home. It is the so-called peak season and Malpensa airport will recover 90% of pre-Covid activity, thanks to the remarkable and sudden rebound which started last April and continued throughout the summer.
The numbers
It is estimated that 425 thousand people will transit in the two airports in Milan. This is the highest number of passengers of the summer holidays: 326,300 people are expected in Malpensa (between departures and arrivals) and 98,700 in Linate. Already between July 8 and 11 420 thousand people had travelled through the airports. This is an anomalous situation, which has no precedent in the statistics of recent years, probably influenced by the great heat wave and smart working options that have convinced many people to anticipate the great escape from big cities. In fact, in the first weekend of July 390 thousand passengers transited through the Milan airports.
The destinations
With much of Asia still closed and a war going on in Eastern Europe, Italians mostly look for Western destinations. In particular the USA has become very popular, though it has been off limits for two years. Flights to New York and other cities in North America (including Canada) served with direct connections have a filling rate of over 90%.
Flights to Southern Italy are also full, especially those to Puglia, Campania and Calabria, but also to the major islands of our country (Sardinia and Sicily), as well as to Spain and its islands and Greece.