SEA Prime is set to open its new €5 million VIP terminal at Milan’s Malpensa airport mid-July, shortly before its sister airport Milano Linate closes for refurbishment.
The new business and general aviation terminal at Milan Malpensa, called Malpensa Prime, is situated between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at the international airport, has its own 50,000 square meter apron and a 5,000 square meter hangar.
The new 1,400 square meter terminal features a dedicated immigration and customs area five lounges and will offer VIP clients a conference centre, limousine service and concierge.
As an intercontinental airport there are no restrictions on the size of the aircraft the new terminal can handle and it will be open for 24 hours a day.
Construction of the new terminal took 10 months at Malpensa. The project to design and build the terminal started in September 2017.
SEA Prime is predicting growth of around 20% in business and general aviation aircraft movements at Milano Malpensa over the next three years, from its current levels of 5,000 last year to around 6,000. Milano Linate handled around 22,000 flights last year.
Speaking at a launch event for the new terminal at the EBACE show in Geneva, Switzerland, Chiara Dorigotti, CEO of SEA Prime said, “Malpensa is a natural extension for Linate and won’t cannibalize that aircraft’s traffic. We are expecting bigger aircraft at Malpensa.
Malpensa airport is located near the Swiss border, giving access to the region’s lakes and skiing and will facilitate business and leisure visitors to the Milan region, which also frequently hosts large concerts and events.
Dorigotti added, “We decided to build the terminal at Malpensa because there is no dedicated service for private and general aviation, but the demand for it is there. We can improve the level of service and create more business.
Despite being just 40km (25 miles) from Lugano airport, Dorigotti said the new terminal would attract business aviation clients. “Lugano is a totally different airport. It’s not intercontinental, it’s closed in the winter and it does not have much capacity in the hangar.”
Marco Funel, commercial development manager at SEA Prime said, “We are working hard to develop revenues and are expecting growth in traffic from the Middle East and the USA.
“We are looking at things like using the new terminal’s customs and immigration area to take passengers from commercial flights, process them in a few minutes and put them on a connecting flight fast. It’s this type of innovation that shows how private and commercial aviation can co-exist at big airports.”
Milano Linate is closing from 27 July until of 27 October to resurface its runway. All of SEA Prime’s customers will use the new terminal at Malpensa during Linata’s closure.
SEA Prime is also building new infrastructure, including a new hangar, the tenth on the apron there, which will open next year.
SEA Prime is part of the SEA Group, which manages both the Milano Linate and Milano Malpensa Airports.
