Malpensa to Lake Como, and the Three Other Airports

The service is run by flibco.com, from $11.64 (€9.99) per person one way, and it takes 50 minutes. It leaves Terminal 1 from Level 1 in front of the Sheraton Hotel at Stop 8, and Terminal 2 from the arrivals area at Bay 8. It calls at Como Grandate, in front of the ASF depot next to the Como Centro park and ride, and finishes at Como San Giovanni railway station.

One hand bag and one hold bag are included, and the booking can be cancelled or changed up to six hours before departure.

Three things are not published and they matter more than the fare. The return fare is not stated on the route page. The frequency is not stated.

The first and last departures are not stated. All three exist only inside the booking form, which means you cannot plan against them before you have a flight number in front of you. The operator's own legal company name is not stated either, on the route page or in the footer.

The Como Grandate stop is worth knowing about even if you are not on the coach, because it is the same Via Colombo site as the comune's flat-rate park and ride, where a day costs $1.17 (€1) and a week $5.83 (€5). That makes it a genuine interchange: a car left there for a week, and a coach to the airport from the same kerb. The parking side of it is on driving and parking.

This is the operator's own dedicated Malpensa tariff, and the row that matters for this lake is Saronno, because Saronno is where the Como Lago line crosses the airport line.

The route to the town of Como

So the rail route to the town of Como is: Malpensa Express to Saronno at $10.49 (€9), then change to the Trenord Ferrovienord line from Saronno to Como Lago, which lands you on the lakefront a few minutes from the piers. The catch is that Trenord publishes no fare table for the Saronno to Como Lago pair. It is priced on the regional kilometre band and the number appears only in the booking engine or the ticket machine.

Nor does Trenord state a total journey time for the combination. Anyone who quotes you a single Malpensa to Como rail price is quoting a booking engine, not a published tariff.

The route to Varenna and the centre of the lake

For Varenna and the centre of the lake the change is at Milano Centrale rather than Saronno, because Varenna-Esino-Perledo sits on the Tirano line out of Centrale. That is $17.48 (€15) on the Malpensa Express and then $8.97 (€7.70) on the kilometre band, about 64 minutes for the second leg. Trenord states no total journey time for that combination either.

The onward shape of the day is on Milan to Lake Como.

Two rules on the Malpensa Express ticket

Two rules on the Malpensa Express ticket are worth having. It is valid for one day from the chosen train and does not require validation. And the Lombardy regional pass, Io Viaggio Ovunque, is explicitly invalid on any journey with origin or destination Malpensa Terminal 1 or Terminal 2, so it cannot cover the airport leg no matter what else it covers on your day.

Trenord's ticket offices at Terminal 1 are inside the station 06:30 to 21:00 and in the arrivals area 07:00 to 21:00.

Linate publishes no service to Como at all. Its own by-bus page lists Air Pullman's Linate Shuttle and Autostradale's Airport Bus Express to Milano Centrale, the ATM city lines 183, 901, 903, 923, 973, Z409 and K511, FlixBus long-distance coaches, Livigno Express and Flyski. Como does not appear anywhere on the page.

No taxi tariff is published on any Linate page either.

What that leaves is a two-stage journey through Milan, and both stages are published. The M4 metro runs Linate to San Cristoforo daily from 05:40 to 00:30, reaching the city centre in 12 minutes and running terminal to terminal in 30, and it accepts contactless cards; the airport does not print the fare. From the centre you are on the ordinary routes north.

The S-line trains that call at Milano Forlanini interchange with M4, but no Como line serves Forlanini, so that route does not shorten the journey. Our own reading is straightforward: if the lake is the destination and the fare difference is small, Malpensa is worth paying for.

The flibco.com service runs Milan Bergamo Airport to Milan Lampugnano, by the San Siro stadium at Via Giulio Natta 226, then Como Grandate Breccia on Via Colombo in front of the ASF depot, and finally Como San Giovanni station at Piazzale San Gottardo 1. It is from $13.97 (€11.99) one way and takes about 1 hour 45 by the A9 motorway, with luggage included and the stop signposted from the arrivals hall. As on the Malpensa route, the return fare, the frequency and the first and last departures are not published: they live inside the booking form.

The airport itself has no station. The operator's own train page says only to arrive by train at Bergamo station and take the ATB bus, in about 10 minutes, to the terminal, and refers you to Trenitalia for timetables without stating a fare. Bergamo to Como by rail needs a change, since Trenord lists Lecco to Bergamo and Como to Molteno to Lecco as separate lines, and no through fare is published.

Flibco's own FAQ states plainly that there is no direct train from Bergamo to Lake Como.

Bergamo to Milan, if Como is not the next stop

If Milan rather than Como is the intermediate target, two operators publish fares to Milano Centrale and they are not the same product at the same price. Autostradale flags its own figure as a limited-period promotion; Terravision's is a standing fare on a direct run with no intermediate stops.

There is no coach. The airport's public transport page lists exactly one option, the Ferrovie Luganesi railway from Lugano to Ponte Tresa, which starts directly opposite Lugano's main railway station; you alight at Agno and walk about 10 minutes to the terminal. It runs Monday to Friday every 15 minutes from 06:25 to 20:10 and every 30 minutes on Sundays and public holidays, every day of the week.

The fare is not stated: luganoairport.ch publishes none and links to the FLP and SBB sites.

From Lugano to Como the rail options are good. TILO and Trenord run the S10 from Biasca through Bellinzona and Lugano to Chiasso and Como San Giovanni by way of the Ceneri base tunnel, every 30 minutes with all regional stops, and the RE80 from Locarno through Lugano and Chiasso to Milano Centrale, calling at Como San Giovanni, every 30 minutes to Chiasso and hourly onward to Milan. A search of the Swiss operator's own timetable for Como San Giovanni to Lugano returned CHF 6.60 second class and CHF 11.00 first on the regional connections, with one connection priced at CHF 20.00 second class.

What it costs from the lake, and what nobody prices

The airport's published taxi fare is CHF 40 to CHF 60 per way into Lugano city, seven days a week from 07:00 to 20:00, with other destinations quoted on request. There is no published fare to Como. From the lake itself, ASF Autolinee runs no Como to Lugano bus at all: its network has the C112 from Menaggio through Porlezza to Lugano and the C126 from Como to Campione d'Italia, and its Lugano fare sheet has no Como row.

None of the three Milan airports publishes a taxi tariff or a fixed fare to Como. Malpensa's from-to section has no taxi page at all, only By car, By train, By coach, Car hire and Terminals connection. Bergamo's taxi page says only to use the rank at Arrivals door 1.

Linate publishes nothing. And the Comune di Como has no taxi tariff page either, so there is no municipal figure to fall back on.

• Flibco's return fares, frequency and first and last departures, on both Como routes.
• Flibco's legal company name, on either route page or in the footer.
• A through fare or a total journey time from any airport to Como or to Varenna.
• The Trenord fare for Saronno to Como Lago, which is priced on the band and quoted only at the point of sale.
• A Malpensa to Lugano through fare, and the FLP fare from Agno to Lugano.

Two dated items should be re-checked before you travel. The Malpensa dedicated rail tariff is a notice dated 1 August 2025, over a year old at the time of writing, so the figures may have moved. And Autostradale's Terminal 1 stop moves from door 4 to Level minus 1 from 22 January 2026, which is the kind of change that only matters when you are standing in the wrong place with a suitcase.

Work backwards from the lake

Work backwards from the lake, not from the airport. The last train from Varenna-Esino-Perledo to Milan on the published sheet is 21:35, and the boat that would get you to Varenna finishes earlier still: on the autumn weekday car-ferry sheet, Menaggio to Varenna ended at 20:10. A flight landing after about 19:00 at Malpensa is therefore a night in Como or in Milan rather than a night on the centre of the lake, unless you have a car or a booked private transfer.

If the coach has gone

If the coach is missed, the fallback is rail from the airport into Milan and then the ordinary routes north, which run later than the coach does. These are the published late departures worth knowing before you commit to an evening flight.

If the counter is closed

If the counter is closed, the ticket is still buyable. On Trenord, buying on board is free of surcharge where the station had no open sales channel within 350 metres and no working machine, and $5.24 (€4.50) on top otherwise. On the boat, an on-board purchase adds $1.17 (€1) only where the departure pier's ticket office was open.

Neither operator leaves you without a legal way to travel, which is worth knowing at 23:00.