M4 made Linate the only one of Milan’s three airports reachable by metro on an ordinary urban ticket. The line runs underground from Linate Aeroporto to San Babila, at the edge of the center, in around twelve minutes. That is the headline. It is also not the whole story, and the gaps matter more to a traveler than the twelve minutes do.
What M4 actually replaced
Before the extension opened, the only public option from Linate was the 73 bus, running in mixed traffic to San Babila. Journey time depended entirely on the roads. M4 removed that variable: it runs in its own tunnel, so a delay on Viale Forlanini no longer touches it.
The airport station, Linate Aeroporto, sits at the eastern end of the line. Linate itself is about seven kilometres from the center — close, as Milan’s airports go. Malpensa, Milan’s intercontinental airport, is roughly fifty kilometres north-west and has its own dedicated express train. Orio al Serio, marketed as “Milan Bergamo”, is about fifty kilometres north-east and sits in a different province entirely. None of that changes because M4 exists; it only sharpens how good Linate’s position now looks by comparison.
The full line opened in stages between 2022 and 2024, with the stretch to Linate completing the route last. ATM, the company that operates Milan’s metro, trams and buses, publishes the current map and any planned works on its own site — worth checking before traveling, since maintenance closures on newer lines are not unusual.
The ticket is the same one everyone else uses
There is no airport surcharge. The M4 journey from Linate uses the standard ATM urban ticket, valid for ninety minutes across metro, tram and bus, with one metro ride included. What that ninety-minute window actually covers is worth reading before the trip, because it also governs what you can and cannot do with a single ticket once you are in the center.
A contactless bank card works directly at the gates, which matters with luggage — one tap, no queue at a machine. But the Milan metro requires a tap on exit as well as entry on lines that use it, Linate’s included. Why you tap out of the Milan metro, and what happens if you don’t explains the mechanism and the cost of skipping it. Never quote the ninety-minute fare as fixed — ATM revises it, and the operator’s own site is the only place to confirm the current figure.
Where M4 stops being the easy option
The case for M4 assumes two things: that the metro is running, and that you can move through the station quickly. Both assumptions fail at predictable times.
Night flights. Milan’s metro does not run all night. Service on M4 stops around half past midnight and resumes around six in the morning — exact times are set by ATM’s timetable and should be checked directly, but the shape of the gap is fixed. A flight landing at Linate in that window has no metro to catch. The alternative is the N93 night bus, which covers the same corridor on the surface, or a taxi from the airport rank.
- Land after roughly 00:30: M4 has stopped for the night. Use the N93 night bus or a taxi.
- Land before roughly 06:00: M4 has not started yet. Same fallback applies.
- Land in the operating window with two large suitcases: M4 works, but expect delay at the gates.
Luggage and the station itself. Linate Aeroporto is a new station built for a busy, single-runway airport, not a wide-open interchange. At peak arrival banks, turnstiles and escalators become the bottleneck, not the train. Two large suitcases per person, multiplied across an arriving flight’s worth of passengers, slows everyone moving through a fixed number of gates and a limited number of escalator lanes. On a quiet midday train this is invisible. After several flights land close together, it can add real minutes — sometimes enough to erase the time M4 saved over a taxi from the rank outside.
None of this makes M4 a poor choice. It makes it a good choice with two conditions attached: check the clock, and check how much you are carrying.
Who this actually serves
For a solo traveler with cabin luggage landing at a reasonable hour, M4 is close to unbeatable — cheap, direct, and immune to road traffic. For a family with hold luggage on a red-eye, or anyone landing after the last train, it is the wrong tool. A taxi rank operates at Linate regardless of the hour, and SEA, the company that runs Milan’s airports, publishes ground transport information on its own site, including current details for taxis and the night bus.
Residents flying in and out of Linate for work trips tend to learn the schedule’s edges quickly, because they hit them repeatedly. Visitors making a single trip are the ones likely to be caught out by a flight that lands twenty minutes after the last train — worth building into the itinerary before booking, not after landing.
The wider transport picture
M4 is one line in a system built around zones, a rechargeable card, and a shared ninety-minute ticket that also covers Milan’s tram network — including the 1928 trams still running ordinary routes, not as a heritage ride but as daily service. The Getting Around section covers how the rest of the network fits together, from surface trams to the older metro lines.
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