For years, Bergamo-Orio al Serio Airport — one of the three airports of the “Milan system,” together with Linate and Malpensa, and the third-busiest in Italy — has remained disconnected from the rail network. Until now, it could only be reached by an extensive network of buses, taxis, or private vehicles.
The new infrastructure, a line of roughly five kilometres linking Bergamo’s central station to the airport terminal, will make it possible to reach the airport in about ten minutes from the city centre and in approximately one hour from Milan Centrale.
The Milan–Orio al Serio railway project
Partly financed through Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) with an overall investment exceeding 200 million euros, the project foresees up to eighty daily connections from Milan, including two per hour from Milano Centrale and a non-stop service from Lambrate. Additional trains will also depart from Carnate, Monza, Greco Pirelli, and Porta Garibaldi.
The opening is scheduled for 2026, in time for the Milan–Cortina Winter Olympics.
Rethinking metropolitan mobility
Long awaited since the early 2000s, the new rail link is set to transform the geography of Lombardy’s mobility.
Orio al Serio — Italy’s third airport by passenger traffic and often regarded as Milan’s “true” airport — will now be integrated into the national railway network, and thus into the Milan metropolitan system. Comparable to the Heathrow Express in London or the RER service to Charles de Gaulle in Paris, the new connection aligns Bergamo with European standards of airport accessibility.
It also marks a shift toward a model of mobility that integrates provincial and airport networks within the broader urban landscape — a vision shared by other major European cities. The project aims not only to reduce road traffic to the airport but also to channel and simplify the growing tourist flows that have characterised the post-pandemic years. In April 2025, coinciding with Milan Design Week, the city recorded 835,587 arrivals, a 10.2% increase over the same period in 2024.
The airport railway station
Alongside the new line, a surface railway station will be built for the airport. The new Orio al Serio station will feature four tracks with 250-metre-long platforms, directly connected to the terminal via an underground pedestrian tunnel.
The intervention also includes landscape mitigation measures and pedestrian–cycle underpasses designed to minimise environmental impact along the 5.3-kilometre stretch between Bergamo station and the terminal.
Opening image: The new railway station of Bergamo-Orio al Serio