Faro to Milan Malpensa Airport is now open as an easyJet aircraft landed today on the route's inaugural flight. The airline's Faro to Naples service will start in July.
The twice a week Milan Malpensa - Faro service is scheduled for Mondays and Fridays with the Faro-Naples route, opening on the 24th of July, flying on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The Italian Honorary Consul, Francesco Berrettini, said the routes will help the tourist flow into the Algarve for the increasing numbers of Italians coming on holiday and for those that live in the Algarve that wish to make trips to their old country.
Alberto Mota Borges, the director of Faro Airport, congratulated easyJet for launching the new service from Faro.
In October last year, Volotea announced a service between Faro and Verona, starting on June 6th.
The Algarve Tourism Association said at the time that there has been a "trend of growth in tourism from the Italian market in the Algarve region, both in terms of holidaymakers and in residential tourism."
"Italy is a market that has presented interesting growth figures in recent years - in 2016 there were close to 108,000 overnight stays by Italian tourists in the Algarve - so we consider it of strategic relevance for the region" explained Dora Coelho, Executive Director of ATA, the agency responsible for promoting the region's tourism to foreign markets and one of the entities that has helped set up the route.
"There has been a significant increase in the number of Italian tourists who are choosing the Algarve as a destination for residential tourism, settling in the region to live for part of the year" says Coelho.
The Italian market was important in the '90s, during which time the Algarve received around 20,000 passengers per year from Italy. However, this operation was interrupted, so the announcement of these new routes should boost both tourism and residency applications.
