All direct flights to Italy from the UK & Ireland

James Says

Direct flights to Italy

 One thing that is immediately apparent if you look at our Italy flights map is that Italy has more alternative airports than just about any other European country. In fact, wherever you might be looking to travel, you will almost certainly have a choice between at least two different arrival airports serving the city you are trying to get to, whether in the form of the typical major and low-cost alternative that you have in Rome (Davinci and Ciampino) or Venice (Marco Polo or Treviso) or Milan, where you have a choice of three arrival airports, including the main hub at Malpensa, which also now has a range of low-cost flights; the more central Linate airport or the low-cost Bergamo. You could even just about squeeze Parma in as another low-cost “Milan South” airport.

However, this choice of alternative airports has thinned a little in recent years -- Ryanair no longer use Forli as an alternative to Bologna, instead using the main city airport, although they currently only offer flights to Bologna from Stansted. Meanwhile, Brescia has also fallen by the wayside as an alternative airport to Verona, which has seen a huge increase in budget and ski charter flights in recent years.

Overall, there are just under 200 direct flight routes from the UK and Ireland to Italy, and these are well spread out across the country. In some cases, you might not have a direct choice between two airports in the same city, but alternative airports still complement each other. For example, there are very few flights to Florence city airport, as the airport is hemmed in by a short runway and strict noise controls. Instead, the best way of getting to Florence is usually to look for flights to Pisa, and then to continue into the renaissance treasure-trove by train. Meanwhile, the islands of Sicily and Sardinia each have multiple alternative airports, with Catania, Palermo and Trapani serving the former; and flights to Sardinia operating into Alghero, Cagliari and Olbia.

 The only major Italian cities with an apparent single choice of airport are Genoa and Turin in the north, and Naples in the south. However, even here, this choice is not completely fixed -- outside the ski season, the range of flights to Turin is extremely limited, whereas Genoa only has flights from London, so to get to either of these cities, it might be better to look for flights to Milan instead, and then to continue by train. Alternatively, flights to Nice in neighbouring France are a good alternative for anywhere around Genoa, whereas Pisa is also an alternative for any of the coastal areas to the south-east of Genoa. Cuneo has so far yet to seriously takeoff as an Alpine alternative to Turin.

Meanwhile, although there is a good range of flights to Naples operated by the predominantly leisure operators in the summer months, outside this season, a much wider choice of flights to Rome is on offer. Naples can easily be reached from Rome by train.

One other thing to bear in mind is that there is no need to assume that just because an alternative low-cost airport exists, it will offer the cheapest option. For example, Rome Ciampino has also been subject to noise restrictions, meaning that most low cost airlines now offer flights to Rome Fiumicino (da Vinci) instead. Meanwhile, easyJet have certainly made their presence known in Venice Marco Polo and also in Milan Malpensa, which has suffered much more in recent years as a network airline hub. Additionally, Monarch Scheduled have recently started going after the city break market, and this has seen them start flights to Venice, Rome and Milan; using the major airport in each of the cities.

 Of course, flights to Italy are not the exclusive domain of the low-cost airlines, with British Airways in particular offering routes to no less than 12 Italian airports. However, at the other end, Alitalia have a much weaker offering, which is hardly surprising, given the struggles the airline has gone through. Currently, Alitalia only serve two Italian cities from the UK; Milan (Linate and Malpensa) and Rome (Fiumicino). Having a hub in the "destination" (as we see it) country often gives airlines the opportunity to add routes from more UK regional airports, but with Alitalia, this is not the case -- they currently only offer flights from London, having previously operated flights from Birmingham and Manchester to Milan.

Other smaller Italian cities with direct flights from the UK include Ancona, Bari, Brindisi, Rimini and Trieste on the Adriatic coast, Lamezia in the southwest, and the more central city of Perugia.

Connecting flights to Italy

A good range of connecting flights to the major Italian cities is available via the usual continental European hubs which are situated somewhere in between the UK and Italy. These naturally include Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt, with Zürich also providing a reasonable range of connections at both ends.

However, the smaller Italian destinations can be quite tricky to reach from regional UK airports, because they only tend to be served by network connecting flights from elsewhere within Italy. It isn't much use trying to find a connecting flight via Rome or Milan, when there are no network feeder flights into either of these cities from any other UK airport outside London. This means that you might be much better off by making a longer journey by land to a London airport for an onward low-cost point to point flight, or alternatively by flying to somewhere else in Italy, and then continuing onwards to your destination by road or rail. There may even be some cases where the best option to reach destinations on islands like Corsica or Sicily might actually be to fly to the mainland and then the travel onwards by ferry.

 Bear in mind that the time taken for transfers by rail Italy can vary enourmously from one part of the country to another. Italy now has a high speed rail spine running from Turin down to Naples, which passes through Milan, Bologna, Florence and Rome on the way. All of these cities are very well connected with each other – for example the journey from Milan to Rome usually takes around 3 ½ hours. Trunk lines also operate between Milan or Bologna and Venice. However, outside these cities, trains tend to operate at a much more sedate pace – so, for example, it could take you as long to trundle between Palermo and Catania on the island of Sicily as it could to wizz between Rome and Milan.

Alternatives and neighbours

 Italy can be reached by train from London, with the main options being to take the TGV from Paris via Lyon, or to take the much more scenic route through Zürich and the stunning Swiss Alps. The main option for fly and rail journeys would be to take advantage of the vast range of flights to Nice from throughout the UK and Ireland, and then to continue in to Italy by train from there. The route along the coastline between Nice and Pisa via Genoa and then back through the Cinque Terre National Park is one of the best in Europe.

 For the Italian great lakes region or the Italian speaking Swiss canton of Ticino, it might sometimes be worth looking at flights to Zürich, which is served from one or two UK regional airports which don't have direct links with Milan. However, there is unlikely to be much point in going via Zürich just to save money, as the additional train fare is likely to cost more than any saving in flight price, if of course there is a saving in the first place.

To the east of Italy, the cities of Venice and even more so Trieste lie very close to the borders with Croatia and Slovenia. However, it is unlikely that you will find many routes to either of these countries which act as a better alternative to the widely available flights to Venice. On the other hand, it is certainly worth looking at continuing from Venice along the beautiful Adriatic coast towards a destination like Pula in Croatia. North-east Italy also shares a border with Austria, and there is no shortage of scenic drives around the Dolomites and then across into the legendary Stelvio pass in south-east Switzerland, or the Glossnockler Road in western Austria. This is also where you will find the delightful Bernina railway taking you from Italy towards the plush ski resort of San Moritz, and you could also continue by train from Venice towards either Innsbruck or Salzburg in Austria.