Landing at Milan Malpensa Airport

What MXP is like

Malpensa handles almost all of Milan's long-haul flying, including the direct services from Asia, so for a lot of travellers it is the first European ground they stand on. Its two main terminals are separate buildings linked by a shuttle, which matters if you are connecting onto a low-cost flight with a short window. Unlike Linate, which sits on the city's edge, Malpensa is a genuine distance out to the north-west. This is not an airport where you walk outside and are at your hotel ten minutes later.

On arrival

Switch the line on in your seat once the wheels are down, then follow the signs to passport control; the walk here is a good deal shorter than at Fiumicino. How long you stand at the desks depends entirely on how many long-haul aircraft landed in the same half hour, and some mornings three or four arrive together. If you need the other terminal, read the shuttle signage at the exit rather than a memory of where it used to stop, since those bays move when the building layout is adjusted. The railway station sits alongside the main terminal and the walkway down to it is clearly marked.

How far the airport Wi-Fi gets you

The airport Wi-Fi is free but arrives behind a sign-in page, and some browsers will not pop that page up by themselves, leaving you hunting for it. In the arrivals hall on a busy morning the speed sags for everyone at once as several wide-bodies empty into the same space. The bigger issue is that the Wi-Fi stops at the airport doors while the journey into Milan takes another fifty minutes, all of it on mobile signal. People who planned to rely on Wi-Fi alone usually discover this once the train has already pulled out.

Getting into town

The Malpensa Express covers the run into town in about fifty minutes, and it serves more than one city station, so check which one a given departure is heading for before you board. The middle of the journey crosses open country where the signal thins for short stretches, then fills back in as the suburbs close around the track. Buses are the cheaper option and entirely at the mercy of the motorway traffic. If you are picking up a hire car to drive on to Lake Como or up into the foothills, download offline maps while you are still at the airport, because the valleys north of the city are where the gaps begin. The leg into town itself runs at roughly 150 to 250MB, mostly maps and checking the timetable twice.

What people ask about this airport

• Two terminals, not one building — Changing terminals means a shuttle and real minutes. On a tight low-cost connection, leave slack and read the signage on the day rather than trusting an old memory.
• Check which city station — Not every departure ends at the same city station. Reading the destination board before you step on saves a doubling back across Milan later.
• Driving to the lakes: map first — Lakeside roads and the tunnels north of the city have gaps. An offline map means you are not pulling over to wait for a screen to load.