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Airport vs airport

Bergamo or Malpensa - which is cheaper for Milan?

Bergamo has the budget reputation and Malpensa has the intercontinental terminals, so most people assume the fare comparison is settled. Priced from Vilnius month by month, it is not: the airport with the expensive reputation usually holds the cheaper floor.

Fare Sniper 19 August 2026 4 min read
Both of Milan's low-cost gateways sit about fifty kilometres from the city. The fare is the real difference. Image pending

Milan has a geography problem that works in the traveller's favour. Its closest airport, Linate, is the one the low-cost routes from the Baltics mostly ignore, so a cheap flight to Milan really means a choice between two airports that are each about fifty kilometres out: Bergamo to the northeast, Ryanair's biggest Italian base, and Malpensa to the northwest, the big international airport. From Vilnius the choice of airport is really a choice of airline, because Ryanair flies the Bergamo route and Wizz Air flies Malpensa. Reputation says Bergamo is the cheap one. Reputation is what most people book on.

We measure both routes from Vilnius on a schedule, so the reputation can be checked instead of trusted. The two charts below show the lowest fare we saw in each month on each route, with the date we saw every figure. Read them together and the pattern is not the one the airports' images suggest.

The two routes, measured

Same city on the ticket, same distance from it on the ground, different airlines, different prices.

Vilnius to Milan Malpensa, lowest measured fare by month
15 € lowest measured one-way, Vilnius to Milan, on Wizz Air
measured, not quoted · seen 14 Aug 2026

Each figure shows the date we measured it.

100
37
15
15
15
15
15
15
21
19
23
23
AugA SepS OctO NovN DecD JanJ FebF MarM AprA MayM JunJ JulJ
6 of the 12 months we have priced share the cheapest floor, about 85 € under August. All the numbers for this route →
Vilnius to Milan Bergamo, lowest measured fare by month
20 € lowest measured one-way, Vilnius to Bergamo, on Ryanair
measured, not quoted · seen 17 Aug 2026

The same months priced into Bergamo, for the comparison.

62
27
20
28
28
28
37
34
34
34
37
37
AugA SepS OctO NovN DecD JanJ FebF MarM AprA MayM JunJ JulJ
October is the cheapest month we have measured, about 42 € under August. All the numbers for this route →

From October onwards, Malpensa holds the lower floor in every month the two routes share, and usually by enough to notice. The gap is widest in the winter months, when the Malpensa route sits at its measured low for month after month while Bergamo drifts upwards. The near-term months are the exception: booking close to departure, the Bergamo route is currently the cheaper of the two. That is the normal late-booking scramble rather than the shape of the year, and it is also a reminder that neither airport is a rule. The route and the month decide, not the logo on the terminal.

Why the reputations mislead here is straightforward. Bergamo is cheap as an airport to operate from, but what you pay is set by competition on your specific route, and from Vilnius Wizz Air prices its Malpensa floor below Ryanair's Bergamo floor for most of the year. A reputation earned on routes from Dublin or London tells you nothing about yours.

The ground game is a draw

Neither airport is close to Milan, and the transfers cost about the same time.

If you are hoping the transfer settles it, it does not. From Malpensa, the Malpensa Express train runs to Cadorna and Centrale in roughly 40 to 55 minutes, several times an hour. From Bergamo, coaches run to Milano Centrale in about 50 to 60 minutes, just as frequently. Both cost money on top of the fare in both directions, neither drops you meaningfully closer to the centre, and both take about an hour of your trip each way. Whatever the fare charts say is the answer; the ground barely moves it.

The natural next question is Linate, the airport that actually is close to Milan: it sits just east of the city and the M4 metro line runs from the terminal to the centre in about a quarter of an hour. The honest answer is that it does not enter this comparison from Vilnius. The low-cost routes do not serve it, we do not hold published measurements on it from Vilnius, and any Linate fare you find will be a network carrier connecting through a hub. If someone else is paying, it is the comfortable door. If you are, the choice stays between the two airports on this page.

How to book this

  1. 01
    Check both airports every time
    The winner flips with the month and with how far ahead you book, so treat "Milan" as two searches, not one. Booking on reputation costs real money on this pair.
  2. 02
    Book ahead for the winter floor
    The cheapest measured months on both routes are in the colder half of the year, and those fares go to people who book weeks out. Waiting narrows the choice to whatever is left at both airports.
  3. 03
    Land at one, leave from the other
    Both routes are sold as one-way fares by different airlines, so nothing stops you flying into Malpensa and home from Bergamo when the cheap days fall that way. Two searches out, two back, and take the cheapest workable pair.
  4. 04
    Count the transfer as part of the ticket
    About an hour and a paid connection each way, at either airport. It does not change which fare is cheaper, but it belongs in the budget, and a very late arrival is worth checking against the last train or coach of the night.

For what to do once you are in, the Milan guide covers the city, the airport logistics and when to go. And if Milan is one option among several, the cheapest flights from Vilnius rank every destination we price from the same airport by the floor we have measured on each.

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