Milan - Malpensa (MXP) > Reviews > Milan "No Ashtray" Malpensa

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Clean, Loads of restaurants, comfy seats
Disadvantages:	No where to smoke

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Imagine being tired, yet handcuffed to a running machine thats on full pelt, welcome to Milan Malpensa.

The Airport that doesn\'t accommodate the needs of the smoker, (And the staff almost start laughing when you ask where the smoking area is!) brings to you the largest Duty free shop Ive ever seen in the EU, quite a few restaurants and cafe\'s and several bathrooms (Where the occasional smoker hangs out waiting to be handcuffed and pinned to the floor by the Italian Police)

The airport is connected to Milan by the Milano-Varese motorway as well by a dedicated train called \"Malpensa Express\". It is also connected to Linate Airport by a scheduled bus service. The Milan airport system has a third international airport, Orio al Serio Airport, which serves low-cost and charter traffic.

Malpensa handled over 21.7 million passengers in 2006 (over 31 million with Linate, the second airport of Milan, closer to downtown and over 36 million with Orio al Serio Airport, Milan\'s low cost airport). Malpensa is the top Italian airport in terms of international traffic, while the second busiest after Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in total passengers; it is also the leading freight air gateway to Italy. Malpensa serves a population of over 15 million people.

Malpensa has two terminals, T1 for commercial traffic and T2 for charter and low-fares traffic. The T1 has two satellites: A - National and European traffic (Schengen area); B - International traffic (extra Schengen area). The third satellite (C) is under construction and a third runway is going to be built. There is also a dedicated cargo terminal called \"CargoCity\" with over 410,000 tons of yearly traffic.

Ground handling services have been slowly deregulated and have seen SEA (the airport authority) create SEA Handling and the arrival of private handler ATA Handling. ATA Handling provides all services apart from bus transport to/from aircraft (subcontracted to SEA Handling) and disabled assistance. Up to 2001 all ground handling services were provided by SEA and TWA. In the first few years of deregulation some airlines put their own staff for customer assistance but Air One and British Airways realised that it was too expensive and so dismissed them. United Airlines stopped flying to Malpensa. To date the only airline with its own check-in staff remains KLM. Passenger handling is provided by SEA Handling, ATA Handling, Aviapartner, Globeground Italia and ICTS Italia. Ramp services are provided by SEA Handling, ATA and recently Aviapartner . SEA Handling provides 80% of ramp services mostly thanks to its major customer Alitalia.

In May 2006, Italy\'s Civil Aviation Authority took off the limitation of two ramp handlers. Aviapartner and ARE Group announced that they would create a new company called Aviapartner (owned 51% by Aviapartner and 49% ARE Group) to serve Milan Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino. There are fears that luggage mishandling will go up.

Aviapartner has started operating serving Iberia flights and signing more contracts as time has gone on. However, SEA Handling maintains a dominant position and is reorganising itself to be more competitive by going from a monopolistic mentality to free market one.

Airport security services have been transferred in 2000 from the Polizia di Stato (State Police) to SEA which created an internal division called SEA Airport Security. Up to 2002 SEA was assisted by IVRI in providing security services but the contract was not renewed. SEA Airport Security is supervised by Polizia di Stato (Italian State Police), Guardia di Finanza (Italian Customs Police) and Ente Nazionale Aviazione Civile (Italy\'s Civil Aviation Authority). Carabinieri supervise ramp entrance. Furthermore some airlines rely on private security companies (such as ICTS Italia, SEA Airport Security, Gruppo Sicurezza etc) to provide ID check and airplane guarding.

I have only used this Airport as a transit station, and each time I have lost the will to live, not only because I seem to always have my flights delayed from here (Usually with Alitalia) but because there is no smoking area!

Travelling to the East, you can virtually smoke on the plane, so you can see my problem when I am starved of Nicotine for up to 12 hours during the most stressful times!

Thanks for reading!