Milan airports: 59.5 million passengers in 2025, and in 2026 Linate and Bergamo outgrew Malpensa

Three airports, three counts and one total

Milan's airport traffic is published in three ways, and the numbers differ slightly. The regulator ENAC counts arriving and departing passengers and leaves out direct transit passengers, who stay on board. Assaeroporti includes them. The two operators, SEA and SACBO, publish their own totals. Each count is correct on its own basis. This report uses Assaeroporti for tables that compare the three airports, because it is the only source that covers all three on one basis, and names the source for every other figure.

On Assaeroporti's 2025 table, as republished by Italiavola & Travel on 4 February 2026, Malpensa handled 31,385,585 passengers, up 8.6% on 2024. Bergamo Orio al Serio handled 16,937,976, down 2.4%. Linate handled 11,131,764, up 4.5%. Together they handled 59,455,325, up 4.5%, against 56,914,931 in 2024. Malpensa added about 2.48 million passengers. The system as a whole added about 2.54 million. Malpensa therefore supplied about 97% of Milan's growth in 2025, on our arithmetic.

The operators' figures tell the same story with small differences. SEA reported 31.2 million passengers at Malpensa in 2025, up 9%, and 11.1 million at Linate, up 5%, a combined 42.3 million. Its board approved the accounts on 25 March 2026. ENAC gives Malpensa 31.2 million, up 8.7%, and Bergamo 16.9 million, down 2.4%. ENAC's 2025 traffic report as read gives no total for Linate, only its domestic passengers. SACBO's figure for Bergamo, 16,937,976, is identical to Assaeroporti's.

Each airport serves a different market. Malpensa is the long-haul gateway. SEA says international passengers made up 85% of its 2025 traffic and that long-haul flights carried about one-fifth. Low-cost airlines carried about 57% of its passengers and traditional airlines about 43%, according to SEA. Its Terminal 2 is used only by easyJet. Malpensa served 204 destinations in 2025, up from 198. Linate is a short-haul city airport. SEA reports that 43% of its passengers flew domestic routes, 45% European routes and 12% routes outside Europe. ITA Airways is its largest airline, with 44% of passengers in 2025. ITA gave up about 30 daily Linate slots to easyJet in summer 2025, according to SEA. Our report on ITA Airways and Lufthansa covers the airline's ownership change. Bergamo is a low-cost base, with Ryanair and Wizz Air its two largest airlines.

Cargo is concentrated at one airport. ENAC counted 764,000 tonnes at Malpensa in 2025, about 61% of Italy's air cargo. SEA's annual report gives 758,400 tonnes for Malpensa, and the definitions behind the two counts are not explained. Bergamo handled 24,531 tonnes, according to SACBO, which made it Italy's fifth cargo airport in ENAC's ranking. Bergamo's cargo rose 56.3% in January–September 2026, to 27,209.6 tonnes, on Assaeroporti's figures. No source read for this report explains the jump.

Malpensa's operator owns the largest stake in Bergamo

SEA is controlled by the City of Milan. The Comune di Milano held 54.81% of SEA's shares at the end of 2025 and 2i Aeroporti SpA held 45.01%, according to SEA's 2025 annual financial report. Small public and private holders own the remaining 0.18%. SEA reported revenue of €876.8 million in 2025 and net income of €190.6 million, up 11.7%.

SACBO's ownership is more fragmented. Its 2025 accounts list ten holders of its 3,543,750 shares at 31 December 2025. SEA holds 30.98%. Intesa Sanpaolo holds 17.90%, the Comune di Bergamo 13.84%, the Bergamo chamber of commerce 13.25% and the Provincia di Bergamo 10.20%. Banco BPM holds 6.96%, Heidelberg Materials Italia Cementi 3.27% and Confindustria Bergamo 0.59%. SACBO owns 3.00% of its own shares. A local flying club holds 0.01%. SEA's annual report lists SACBO as an associate company.

The result is a single largest shareholder across all three airports. SEA does not control Bergamo, because the other holders together own more than two-thirds of SACBO. It is still the biggest single owner of the other large low-cost airport serving Milan. The two companies publish separate accounts and separate traffic figures. Neither publishes any data on how their airports share the Milan market, such as catchment areas, overlap between passengers or routes moved from one airport to another.

Bergamo's finances are smaller. SACBO's group production value was just under €165 million in 2025, according to its board's release of 26 March 2026. Aviation revenue fell 4.7% to €53.0 million, and commercial revenue rose 3.2% to €72.8 million. SACBO SpA made a net profit of €8.6 million. The company reported 717 employees at the end of 2025. The two operators differ greatly in scale. SEA's 2025 revenue of €876.8 million was more than five times SACBO's group production value, a different but comparable measure of scale. SEA's two airports handled about 42.3 million passengers on its own count, against about 16.9 million at Bergamo. The shareholding links a large city operator with a smaller airport whose traffic depends on one airline's choices.

Linate's limit is 18 movements an hour, and it has no passenger cap

Linate's capacity is set by the state, and the operator does not set it. SEA's 2025 annual report states that Linate is capped at 18 movements per hour by ENAC decree 01-420/DG of 12 February 2001. A movement is one take-off or one landing. The decree itself was not available to read for this report. The European Commission confirmed the figure in its Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/1415 of 18 August 2022, which refers to Linate's "defined capacity limits of the airport, namely 18 hourly movements".

The same decision sets the shape of Linate's network. It approved an Italian rule that allows point-to-point flights from Linate with narrow-body aircraft to airports within 1,500 km, in the EU or in countries with a qualifying air agreement with the EU. It refused a further Italian proposal to stop airlines selling Linate tickets that connect at airports outside Milan. Long-haul flights therefore stay at Malpensa.

Linate has no passenger cap. The Commission's decision records that earlier limits on flight frequency, which depended on passenger volumes, were removed by a later Italian decree. Linate carried 11.1 million passengers in 2025, according to SEA. SEA reported 93,200 commercial movements at Linate in 2025, up 3%, an average of about 255 a day on our arithmetic. Growth at Linate now depends on fuller and larger aircraft, and on how the 18 hourly slots are used across the day. In January–September 2026 Linate's passengers rose 8.7% while its movements rose 5.7%, on Assaeroporti's figures. Passengers per movement rose from about 90 to about 93 on our arithmetic.

The limit moved once in 2026. Malpensa's runway 35L/17R was closed from 16 March to 9 May for rebuilding. ENAC and SEA said in a joint statement of 19 February, as republished by Italiavola & Travel, that ENAC had raised Linate's limit by up to eight additional movements an hour, on the operator's proposal and only temporarily. Only flights to Schengen destinations on narrow-body aircraft moved to Linate. SEA's annual report dates the increase from 29 March to 9 May. Il Fatto Quotidiano reported on 19 February that the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport had granted a derogation lifting the maximum to 24 movements an hour.

The two accounts differ on the size of the increase, on the authority that granted it and on its start date. The act itself was not found. This report therefore gives no single figure for Linate's temporary limit. Neither ENAC nor SEA has published how many flights or passengers moved from Malpensa to Linate during the seven weeks of works.

Bergamo runs on one airline

Ryanair carries most of Bergamo's passengers. SACBO's 2025 accounts give Ryanair 13,662,195 passengers at Bergamo out of a total of 16,937,976. That is 80.7%, on our arithmetic, and the share was 80.6% in 2024. Ryanair's passengers fell by 332,427 in 2025. The airport's total fell by 415,597. Ryanair therefore accounted for 80% of the decline. All other airlines together fell 2.5%, from 3,358,951 to 3,275,781 passengers. SACBO reports Ryanair's average load factor at 90.3%.

The rest of the list is short. Wizz Air carried 1,601,824 passengers at Bergamo in 2025, up 3.1%, or 9.5% of the total. Pegasus carried 280,292. Volotea, Air Arabia, AJet, Flydubai, Air Arabia Egypt and Air Arabia Maroc each carried between 100,000 and 130,000. Neos carried 87,371, up 64.6%. SACBO's accounts say easyJet ceased operations at the airport during 2025. Most of the smaller airlines grew faster than the leader. Air Arabia rose 23.6%, AJet 36.2% and Flydubai 9.7%. Six airlines based in Turkey, the Gulf, Egypt and Morocco carried about 852,000 passengers, about half of Bergamo's traffic outside Ryanair and Wizz Air, on our arithmetic. Their combined volume is still small. The nine airlines listed after Ryanair carried about 2.67 million passengers in 2025, on our arithmetic from SACBO's table, less than a fifth of Ryanair's total.

SACBO's own explanation puts Ryanair first. The accounts say traffic slowed from the 2024–2025 winter season, first because of Ryanair, then because easyJet ceased operations and Wizz Air slowed for lack of aircraft. Passengers were down 6.2% at mid-year, according to SACBO. The second half improved, helped by renewed commercial agreements with Ryanair, which the company says should support growth over the next decade. The accounts give no terms or duration. Movements fell 4.8% for the year, to 104,665.

The press account in 2025 was sharper. Il Post reported on 22 August 2025 that Bergamo was the only medium-to-large Italian airport to lose passengers in the first half of the year, citing a 4% fall in ENAC data. It said Ryanair operated 80% of the airport's flights and had cut about 5% of them, around 2,000 flights. Il Post, citing an analysis by Leonard Berberi in Corriere della Sera, reported that SACBO had paid more than €500 million in airline incentives between 2009 and 2024, about €400 million of it to Ryanair according to SACBO sources. These are press figures, partly from unnamed sources. SACBO's 2025 accounts show €55,255,489 in incentives to all airlines that year, down 13.7%. They give no figure by airline.

The two mid-year figures for 2025 differ, at a 4% fall in ENAC data reported by Il Post and a 6.2% fall stated by SACBO. They may cover slightly different periods. The full-year figure is the same on every series, a fall of 2.4%. Il Post's 80% refers to flights, and SACBO publishes passengers by airline but not flights by airline. The two shares are consistent in size and measure different things.

Ryanair's own figures cover Milan as a whole and cannot be checked. In its release of 1 October 2026 the airline announced 33 based aircraft in Milan, 125 routes and 8.7 million winter seats, up 11%, including more than 640,000 extra seats at Malpensa, up 27%, and two more aircraft at Bergamo. Its earlier releases gave fleet counts that do not add up to that total. Ryanair has not published passenger numbers for Malpensa, and the Milan passenger totals in its releases have no defined scope. Wizz Air said in March 2026 that it would base a tenth aircraft at Malpensa from 25 October 2026. These are company statements about capacity. Seats are not passengers.

Ryanair also ties its Milan plans to a tax. It says the municipal surcharge on departing passengers, the addizionale comunale, can reach up to €7 per passenger at Bergamo and Malpensa. The 2025 budget law set a €0.50 increase from April 2025 on non-EU departures at airports with more than 10 million passengers, according to the airport association's position paper, which said in December 2025 that the implementing decree was still pending and argues for phasing the charge out. The surcharge is a different levy from the tourist tax charged per hotel night. Ryanair says that abolishing it nationally would bring 20 million more passengers a year. No government or ENAC estimate of its effect on traffic has been published.

In 2026 Linate and Bergamo grew while Malpensa barely moved

Assaeroporti's statistics page, read on 1 November 2026, gives January–September 2026 figures for every airport. Malpensa handled 24,087,446 passengers, up 0.9%. Linate handled 9,022,175, up 8.7%. Bergamo handled 13,871,761, up 7.4%. Italy as a whole handled 187,124,810, up 5.5%. Milan's three airports together handled 46,981,382 passengers, 25.1% of the national total, against 22.8% for Rome's two airports.

Working back from the published percentages, which are rounded to one decimal place, Malpensa added about 215,000 passengers. Linate added about 722,000 and Bergamo about 956,000. Milan's total rose about 1.89 million, or about 4.2%. Linate and Bergamo supplied about 89% of that gain. In 2025 Malpensa had supplied about 97%. Milan's airports handled a quarter of Italy's passengers in January–September 2026 and supplied about a fifth of the national growth. These are derived figures and approximate.

Malpensa's movements fell 1.2% while its passengers rose 0.9%, so each flight carried more passengers on average. The airport's cargo fell 6% over the same months. September looked different from the rest of the period. Malpensa's September passengers rose 4.5%, against 5.7% at Linate and 6.9% at Bergamo. Taking September out of the nine-month totals, Malpensa grew about 0.4% in January–August, Linate about 9.1% and Bergamo about 7.5%, on our arithmetic from the same Assaeroporti page.

Several events overlap with Malpensa's flat months. The runway closure ran from 16 March to 9 May, with intra-Schengen narrow-body flights moved to Linate. SEA's annual report said routes exposed to the conflict involving Iran accounted for 6% of the system's 2025 passengers. The same report said passengers across SEA's two airports had grown 7% in January and February 2026. None of these sources states how much of Malpensa's 2026 result each factor explains. Assaeroporti's statistics page carries monthly airport figures for September only, and the earlier months were not read for this report. The data cannot separate the runway works from other causes.

Some of Linate's gain is plausibly linked to the closure, since flights moved there by design. That link is an inference. No source quantifies it. Linate also grew in 2025, by 4.5%, before any works began. Bergamo's 2026 growth follows its 2025 fall and SACBO's account of renewed Ryanair agreements. SACBO said its passengers were up about 6% in January–April 2026. Ryanair's planned winter capacity at Malpensa will show in Assaeroporti's data from November onward. September is the only month of 2026 with airport figures on Assaeroporti's page. It shows Malpensa growing again, still more slowly than the other two airports. One month is too short to call a recovery.

The common pattern is that totals are published and causes are not. Assaeroporti publishes monthly passengers for each airport within weeks. SEA and SACBO publish annual accounts with traffic, airline mix and ownership. No public source measures the passengers moved by the runway closure, the overlap between the three airports' catchments, the share of residents and visitors at each airport, Ryanair's passengers at Malpensa or the effect of the municipal surcharge. Malpensa's masterplan, approved in December 2024 according to Milano Finanza, foresees about 40 million passengers in 2035. That would be about 28% above SEA's 2025 figure for Malpensa, on our arithmetic. Planning on that scale depends on figures nobody publishes.

Figures that do not survive a check

Several figures about Milan's airports circulate with the wrong period, the wrong unit or no source. The most consequential concerns Malpensa's 2026 growth. A Travelextra headline of 25 August 2026 said Malpensa grew 8.6% in the first half of 2026. That number is Malpensa's growth for the whole of 2025 on Assaeroporti's basis. The nine-month 2026 figure is +0.9%.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers can choose between three airports with different roles. Malpensa handles Milan's long-haul flights and most of its international traffic. Linate is the closest to the city and serves domestic and short-haul international routes within 1,500 km. Bergamo is a low-cost base where Ryanair carries about four in five passengers. Check which airport a Milan fare uses before booking, since the three airport codes are MXP for Malpensa, LIN for Linate and BGY for Bergamo. Our Milan travel guide and things to do in Milan help plan the city stay. Travelers heading to the lakes can start from the Lake Como travel guide or the Lake Garda travel guide. Runway works can move flights between airports at short notice, as Malpensa's closure in spring 2026 showed.

Tourism businesses and investors should note that SEA runs two of the three airports and is the largest single shareholder in the third, and that one airline carries four in five Bergamo passengers. Bergamo's traffic rises and falls with Ryanair's decisions, and Ryanair's 2025 decline produced 80% of the airport's loss on SACBO's figures. Linate cannot exceed 18 movements an hour except under a temporary increase, so its growth depends on how those slots are filled across the day and on fuller, larger aircraft. Malpensa's 2026 slowdown has no published explanation. Airport totals count arrivals and departures, so they are not visitor counts. Our reports on Milano Cortina 2026 and the 2026 tourism record watch track the visitor series.

Journalists and analysts can cite these figures with their series. The box above lists each figure with its series. Linate's limit is 18 movements an hour, confirmed by the European Commission in 2022. Do not repeat a Malpensa growth figure of 8.6% for 2026, a passenger cap at Linate or a single figure for Linate's 2026 temporary limit. Do not describe Il Post's 80% of flights as a share of passengers, or treat Ryanair's 20 million extra passengers as an estimate. The finding that recurs across this series holds in Milan. Rules and totals are published, and their effects are not measured.