MXP: From Gateside to Curbside

My latest Gateside to Curbside test took place at an unusual hour. After a substantially delayed Wizz Air flight from London Luton, I touched down at Milan Malpensa at 3:18 am on Saturday, October 17, 2026.

This was a different sort of arrival in other ways too. We were traveling on a low-cost carrier, disembarked onto the apron rather than through a jet bridge, and had to clear staffed passport control before collecting checked luggage.

Despite all that, the airport portion of the journey proved remarkably quick. I was in public arrivals just 17 minutes after stepping off the aircraft. Four minutes later, I was in a taxi heading into Milan. By 4:28 am, I had reached my hotel. The complete journey from touchdown to the hotel took 70 minutes.

As with the other Gateside to Curbside tests, the clock starts when I step off the aircraft and stops when I reach public arrivals, after immigration, baggage reclaim and customs. I walk at a normal pace, without overtaking passengers specifically to improve the result. I slow down to take photographs along the way, which also provide the timestamps, and any delays are included rather than adjusted away. As usual, this test included checked luggage.

Touchdown time is recorded separately because landing and leaving the aircraft are two different events. I also continued recording the journey beyond public arrivals, this time by taxi to my hotel in Milan.

Gateside to Curbside: 17 minutes.
Gateside to Milan hotel: 56 minutes

Our delayed Wizz Air flight from London Luton touched down at Milan Malpensa at 3:18 am.

We remained aboard for another 14 minutes before disembarking. At 3:32 am, I stepped off the aircraft and started the Gateside to Curbside clock. Unlike the jet-bridge arrivals in my previous tests, this one involved mobile aircraft stairs and a walk across the apron. There was no transfer bus.

Passengers walked directly from the aircraft toward the terminal entrance. The apron was well illuminated, and the route was straightforward. There were plenty of people around, but the group kept moving.

A remote stand can introduce a substantial delay if passengers must wait for buses, but that wasn’t the arrangement here. By 3:34 am, I was entering the terminal building, two minutes after stepping off the aircraft.

Once inside, the route involved a series of corridors, directional signs and stairs. Despite the hour, the arrivals route was fully illuminated and passengers continued moving steadily. There were no obvious delays along the way.

The signs directed passengers toward baggage reclaim, the exit and passport control. By 3:38 am, I was approaching the immigration area. Much of the terminal was quiet at that hour. One shuttered area displayed an opening time of 7:15 am, although that had no effect on the arrivals route.

Arriving from the UK meant entering the Schengen Area, so passport control was involved.

At 3:41 am, I passed a large bank of automated passport gates. They were unused at that hour, and we proceeded toward staffed passport control instead. A handful of passengers were queuing at the staffed desks. By 3:42 am, I had reached the immigration queue. At 3:44 am, I was at the all-passports checkpoint queue. There were people ahead of me, but the queue moved reasonably quickly. I cleared immigration and reached baggage reclaim by 3:47 am.

That put the journey from the aircraft door to baggage reclaim at just 15 minutes, including the apron walk and staffed passport control.

I reached the baggage reclaim hall at approximately 3:47 am. The area was quiet, with few passengers remaining around the carousels. Our checked luggage was already circulating, and we waited only for the suitcases to complete another rotation before collecting them at 3:48 am.

That was an important advantage on this particular arrival. We spent almost no time waiting for baggage delivery, which can be a substantial component of the journey through an airport.

With the luggage collected, we headed toward the exit. There was no meaningful customs delay. We passed through the exit route and reached the public arrivals area at 3:49 am. That stopped the formal clock.

Gateside to Curbside: 17 minutes.

From touchdown at 3:18 am to public arrivals at 3:49 am, the total was 31 minutes. The 14-minute interval between touchdown and stepping off the aircraft was almost as long as the entire subsequent airport arrival process.

The result was faster than I expected from an arrival involving aircraft stairs, an apron walk, staffed passport control and checked luggage. But the journey wasn’t finished.

Four minutes after reaching public arrivals, we were in an airport taxi. I had stepped outside the terminal at 3:50 am, and finding a taxi and loading our luggage took only another three minutes.

We paid €114 for the journey from Malpensa into Milan, matching the fixed fare displayed on a tariff notice inside the taxi.

At that hour, a taxi was an attractive option. We had arrived substantially later than planned, had checked luggage, and wanted to get directly to the hotel. The fare was hefty, but the journey was quick.

The taxi left Malpensa shortly after 3:53 am. At 4:12 am, we passed through the toll-road area, providing an intermediate timestamp during the drive toward Milan. By 4:28 am, we had reached the Avani hotel.

The taxi journey took approximately 35 minutes. From stepping off the aircraft at 3:32 am to reaching the hotel at 4:28 am, the complete journey took 56 minutes. From touchdown, it took 70 minutes.

Breaking the journey into its component stages shows how little time was spent waiting.

The apron walk was quick. The eight minutes between entering the terminal and joining the immigration queue were spent covering distance rather than waiting. Staffed passport control did not produce a substantial delay, and our checked luggage was already circulating when we reached baggage reclaim.

The late hour may have influenced the conditions we encountered, but this single observation cannot establish whether an arrival at 3:30 am is normally faster than one during the day. What we can say is that this particular journey moved quickly from beginning to end.

A delayed flight arriving at 3:18 am is hardly an ideal way to begin a visit to Milan. But once we stepped off the aircraft, Malpensa worked remarkably efficiently for us.

Even with an apron walk, staffed immigration and checked luggage, this particular journey demonstrated how quickly passengers can sometimes move through an airport.