Getting back almost three million passengers from the north of Italy that foreign airline companies take on their intercontinental routes, implementing the full integration of intermediate stops, routes and frequencies with partner KLM, strengthening the already growing cargo sector, improving service providing state-of-the-art airport facilities: the opening of Malpensa 2000 is really strategic for Alitalia. The brand new hub will allow Milan to be part of the first five European airports for number of passengers along with London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Rome. 

A longed-for goal that was not only crucial in terms of a higher competition in the tough market of air transportation, but that has an extremely positive impact on passengers as well. Malpensa is in fact poised to become Northern Italy's traffic key area from and to the rest of Europe and the world.  

In the last two years Alitalia, with the help of some strategic alliances with national and foreign airline companies, built an organic web of domestic and international links. Milan was the missing tessera. From now on all domestic fights will converge in the new Malpensa airport which they will be able to leave after a two-hour landing without any further stops towards their final destination.  

Compared with the previous situation, this system allows passengers on long-distance flights to avoid an intermediate stop in a European city. Milan's Linate airport, the terminal of domestic air traffic, is in fact not equipped with landing and takeoff areas for intercontinental flights.  

Alitalia estimated that 2 million 700 thousand passengers resort to rival airlines because of this structural problem. Besides the number of “lost” passengers, Italy's airline company also calculated the number of “prospective” customers and estimated that its weekly flights on Malpensa will double from 800 to 1600 in the summer of 1999.  

Milan, the third air traffic area in Europe after London and Paris, is expected to reach a yearly movement equal to 33 million passengers in 2005 with respect to the current 18 million. The great majority of the passengers will fly from Malpensa whereas only the routes with over two million passengers per year will be kept at Linate (currently only the Milan-Rome route).

Within this context, Alitalia will be the first and greatest user of intercontinental intermediate stops with a specialisation in business-related flights. Along with the Fiumicino airport that deals with tourist flights, Italy will boast the first integrated and specialised airport axis in Europe.  

The advantages for future travellers are manifold. Besides nonstop international flights, faster transfer times and lower costs stemming from a new economic management, passengers will also benefit from a technically state-of-the-art new airport.  

The airport has been equipped with short passages to board or to get out of terminals. The designers of the company that runs the airport, SEA, calculated that it will only take 30 to 35 minutes from the time passengers arrive at the airport to the moment they take off.  

A railway station, ramps, multi-storey parking lots, the new terminal main body, radial areas with telescopic walkways directly linked to the airplanes and the axis of one of the two runways are in fact all located within a kilometre.  

Escalators and moving walkways connect both the railway station and the parking lots (four underground and one outdoor levels amounting to 5 thousand places with an extra 10 to 11 thousand more distant parking places) directly to the terminal.  

The central part of the hub extends vertically and sharply separates the areas for the arrival and departure of passengers. The same separation has been kept in the radial areas. The departure area is made up by four islands (one at Alitalia's complete disposal) with 186 check-in desks, 32 of which for passengers with hand-luggage only.  

Among the facilities provided to passengers waiting to board are 50 shops, 15 restaurants, bank branches, exchange offices, pharmacies, post offices, car renting, travel agencies, Vip halls, business centres, exhibition and cultural rooms. Some of the shops, bars, last minute check-in desks and waiting rooms have also been located in each of the three radial areas thus allowing passengers to immediately have access to eleven airplanes at the same time by walking through telescopic walkways.  

The luggage handling system is a very advanced one. When it is fully implemented it will handle 14 thousand 600 pieces of luggage per hour without creating congestion problems. The safety apparatus is even more advanced as it makes it possible to x-ray 100 per cent of the luggage to be boarded and in transit.  

The new Milanese airport holds some other trumps that become fundamental especially in the winter months. Malpensa is located in a far more favourable area with respect to Linate from a climatic standpoint: Malpensa's foggy days are only 1 versus Linate's 48 and Malpensa's technical facilities make it possible for airplanes to land even with such “critical” weather.  
The last point to be underlined that makes the new facilities strategic for Alitalia concerns goods. According to IATA estimates, the cargo section in the world will increase at an average yearly rate equal to 6,7% over the next two decades.  

Even in this sector our national company was penalised by airport shortfalls in one of Europe's most industrialised areas.  
Presently, 40% of the good traffic coming into or getting out of our country is handled by using other airports. The Cargo City (whose size has been customised to handle 1 million tons of goods per year) is destined to give Alitalia 20% of this traffic.  

The opening of the Malpensa airport falls within the objectives included in the second phase of the Five-Year Plan for Development presented by Alitalia's managing director Domenico Cempella in 1996.  
After managing to single out economic and financial reorganisation priorities, all the corporate resources are from now to the year 2000 focussed to qualify and re-launch its product in order to give the Italian economy a finally competitive company again. 

            a cura della  Alitalia SpA