Travellers using Faro airport and heading for the delights on Italy now have a choice of more than one destination airport as easyJet is to offer a service to and from Milan.
Volotea announced in October that it was to provide a service between Faro and Verona next June, to the delight of opera lovers.
With the increasing interest of Italians moving to the Algarve, the Milan route, run by a major airline, will encourage more Italians to explore the region with a view to settling.
The Faro-Milan route will open in June 2018 with two flights a week, Monday and Friday, using an Airbus A319. The route will be suspended in October to the annoyance of those wanting an autumn break in northern Lombardy.
Milan is a global capital of fashion and design, home to Italy’s stock exchange and its financial hub. High-end restaurants and shops aplenty there also is the Gothic Duomo di Milano cathedral and the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent where Leonardo da Vinci’s mural ‘The Last Supper’ can be found.
This new connection to Italy, albeit for only four months represents "a new stimulus for tourism in the Algarve region," according to the regional tourist board, which commented that, "this market has a strategic relevance for the Algarve, given the trend of recent tourism indicators, not only in terms of visitors, but also in terms of residential tourism."
In 2016, Italians accounted for 108,000 overnight stays in the Algarve.
The Italian market was an important one for the Algarve in the 1990s, a time when the region welcomed around 20,000 Italian passengers per year but there have been no direct flights to Italy for years.
See also: 'Algarve connects to Verona'Algarve connects to Verona'
