Private Jet London to Milan

Seven kilometres or forty minutes: what Linate is actually worth

Linate puts you in the centre of Milan in about a quarter of an hour, from a terminal built for private traffic where the car meets the aircraft. Malpensa and Bergamo both work perfectly well and take any aircraft between them, but each adds around forty minutes of road on arrival and the same again on departure, which on a day return is an hour and twenty minutes out of your schedule. Linate runs to slots and the good ones go early, particularly around the fashion weeks and the April furniture fair. Give us the dates as soon as you have them and Linate is usually straightforward; leave it late in a peak week and the alternatives are there, with the drive built into the plan rather than discovered on arrival.

The day return works here, and Linate is the reason

Out at seven, at an office off Corso Venezia by half past ten, back in London for dinner. That shape holds because the ground time at both ends is measured in minutes rather than hours, and it is exactly what disappears if the aircraft has to go into Malpensa instead. Booking the return alongside the outbound adds roughly a fifth to the one-way figure rather than doubling it, since the aeroplane waits at Linate for the day on the crew’s time and a parking fee. It also fixes the cabin and the crew, so nothing has to be found again at five in the afternoon.

Two caveats on those figures

– The fashion weeks in February and September and the furniture fair in April lift these figures and tighten Linate in particular. Those dates are worth naming at the enquiry so we can secure the slot first;

– Air Passenger Duty is charged per passenger leaving the United Kingdom and sits inside the figures. It applies to the outbound leg only, not to the return from Italy.

How the London choice plays out on this route

Ten minutes separate the closest field from the furthest in the air, so the drive and the availability decide it. For a departure straight from the City, London City is fifteen minutes away and its slightly longer sector costs nothing worth counting. For Mayfair, Northolt where a slot exists. For anyone west of the capital, Farnborough and Oxford are both quicker to reach than the northern fields. Then the second question: an aircraft already sitting at your chosen field carries no positioning cost, and on this corridor there is usually something, because the traffic between London and Milan keeps aeroplanes moving in both directions through the week.

How we choose between them

Linate first, for the fifteen-minute drive and the terminal built around private traffic. Malpensa when the dates fall in a fashion week or the April fair and the Linate slots have gone, when the aircraft is a large cabin, or when the trip continues onto a scheduled long-haul flight. Bergamo when the destination sits east of the city or when both of the others are working at capacity. Bresso for a light aircraft and a small party who want the shortest possible drive. Tell us where in Milan you are actually going, and the airport follows from that rather than the other way round.

Tell us the whole itinerary rather than the first flight

Where Milan is the first of several stops, the aircraft that carries you out from London is usually the one that should carry you onward, and pricing the trip as a whole comes out below three separate charters. It also changes what we recommend: a cabin sized for London to Milan alone may be the wrong choice if the itinerary continues to Rome or across to Sardinia. Each of those destinations has its own page with the local detail, among them Turin, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and Sardinia.

In the peak weeks the slot is worth more than the discount

During the fashion weeks and the April fair the question stops being what an aircraft costs and becomes where it can land. A Linate slot secured six weeks out is worth a good deal more to the day than any figure negotiated on the aeroplane, because the alternative is forty minutes of Lombardy motorway at each end. That is why we ask for those dates before anything else and hold the slot first. Outside those weeks this is an ordinary European business route with ordinary pricing, and the largest variable becomes what is already positioned near your London field.

Four levers you control

– Give the dates early if they fall in a show week. The Linate slot is the scarce thing, and securing it shapes everything after;

– Ask what is already positioned. On this corridor there is usually something, and it moves the figure more than the choice of cabin;

– Book the return with the outbound. A fifth more rather than double, with the same aircraft waiting at Linate;

– Say where the trip goes next. If Milan is one of several stops, pricing the itinerary whole comes out below separate bookings.

How to read those figures

– Each price is for the whole aircraft rather than per seat. A Legacy 600 at 8,300 pounds carrying thirteen comes out around six hundred and forty a head for a ninety-minute flight;

– Compare each line with the same class in the price table above. A Citation XLS+ at 5,300 against a fresh charter at 9,900 is the discount in plain terms;

– Check which Milan airport the leg uses. A leg into Malpensa is still a good price, and the forty minutes of road want building into the plan.

Where it counts most on a Milan trip

The table above puts the door-to-door difference at about two hours, and on a same-day return that is what decides whether the schedule holds at all. A board arriving together at Linate is in the centre before a commercial flight would have finished taxiing at Malpensa. The collection travels in the cabin rather than through an oversize desk. And when the meeting runs long, which in Milan it frequently does, the aircraft is still there. That is what the corridor is actually bought for, and it is why the same clients come back for the fashion weeks year after year.

Two points on rotary legs here

– Villa and hotel pads around the lakes are licensed individually and want agreeing days ahead. Where the destination is a private property we start that at the enquiry rather than on the morning;

– Alpine weather closes rotary routes on days a jet operates without difficulty, so a car stays arranged behind every mountain leg as a matter of course.

The paperwork, in order

The microchip goes in before the rabies vaccination rather than after, and the jab needs to be three weeks old by the day you land. Then an Animal Health Certificate signed by an Official Veterinarian no more than ten days before you enter the European Union, and that document covers return journeys for the following six months. The tapeworm treatment governs the journey home to Britain only: an Italian vet administers it between one and five days before you fly back and records the date and the product. Nothing is required on the way into Italy.

Three practical points

– The vet appointment for the return happens in Milan, and on a short trip the window wants planning. We arrange it alongside the aircraft rather than leaving it to the client;

– Italy is among the more relaxed European countries about animals in hotels and restaurants, which makes a longer stay easier than most. The lakes in particular are used to it;

– There is no hold on a private aircraft, so a large dog travels exactly as a small one does and stays at your feet for the whole flight.

Related pages

The two ends of the corridor in full: private jet charter from London, private jet charter to Milan and the wider Italy guide.

Onward across Italy: Turin, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Sardinia and Olbia.

The London fields: Biggin Hill, London City, Stansted, RAF Northolt, Farnborough, Luton and Oxford.

Worth seeing too: the empty legs on offer now and our guide to flying with animals.