Celebrating the first successful 20 years of the easyJet base at Milan Malpensa airport.
"We took a gamble"
It all began “with great enthusiasm and curiosity, but also a touch of scepticism," recalls Lorenzo Lagorio, country manager Italy, who has been with the company for 18 years. "
We started with three aircraft based there and around a hundred employees, with just 11 routes and fewer than 6,000 annual flights operated from Malpensa. We seized an opportunity (when Alitalia’s withdrew from the airport. Ed.) and took a gamble as flying was ceasing to be a privilege for the few, becoming accessible to many. We were in the midst of the "democratization" of air travel, and easyJet was its undisputed protagonist.”
Ten low-noise A321 neos and A320 neos
Today, with “22 aircraft based here, 76 routes and a capacity of 8.7 million seats across nearly 50,000 annual flights, easyJet is the leading carrier at Milan Malpensa and the investment continues. Of these aircraft as many as ten - roughly half - are new-generation models, seven A321neos and three A320neos that reflect our commitment to sustainability, with significantly reduced emissions and, above all, a noise impact over 50% lower than previous models."
23 routes and 1.7 million seats
The 2026 summer season will see "5.7 million seats to and from Malpensa across a network of 16 countries and several iconic destinations such as Cape Verde, the Lofoten Islands in Norway, Iceland, and the Caucasus.” This commitment to Milan and Lombardy has, since last year, also included Linate. “Here we operate 23 routes with 1.7 million seats available for the summer, five aircraft are based here and there are over 180 employees, confirming easyJet's position as the leading carrier in terms of capacity offered at Malpensa and Linate, with around 12 million seats available. This encourages us to continue investing and collaborating with partners and institutions." At Malpensa easyJet also operates a Training Centre, with nine flight simulators and state-of-the-art technology, to train over 8,000 pilots and cabin crew from across Europe annually.
Brunini: “Malpensa's national carrier would be orange”
“easyJet is the closest thing Malpensa has to a national carrier. The airline invested at a pivotal moment in Malpensa’s history- an airport built to be a hub without a hub carrier. easyJet has partly filled that void and today operates an extensive network of some100 routes. Many are European capitals served with multiple daily flights, while others are unique leisure destinations, operated exclusively by easyJet. If there were to be a national carrier at Malpensa, it would certainly orange," says Armando Brunini, CEO of SEA Milan Airports.
