States returns to Milan, flights to America resume

After the great darkness, we begin to see some of the light at the bottom of the tunnel, traveler confidence is back up and connections that had been decimated are increasing again.

Finally, after a year since it was discontinued, the connection between Milan Malpensa e New York  operated by American Airlines (Alitalia, Delta and United are already flying).

American Airlines' first connection between Malpensa and JFK had been established in the 2008 and had never been disrupted since then, until March 2020 when the commercial aviation sector had an abrupt and painful braking.

Alitalia had suppressed flights to the States, later joining Delta and United who had experimented with "Covid-free" flights, where they bypassed the quarantine requirement on arrival by double-checking by swabbing, both on departure and arrival.

Milan's Malpensa and Linate airports had had to give up 50% of their workforce, between layoffs and layoffs, in addition to losses that, as of October, exceeded 75% and were struggling to shrink.

Health passport accelerates reopenings

One of the initiatives that is acting as a watershed for the gradual restart of the travel and tourism industry is the establishment of a Health Passport which enables app-based tracking of the pads carried out before flights, or if the traveler has undergone vaccination versus Covid-19.

One of the first airlines in Europe to decide to adopt this innovation is British Airways which made use of theVeryFLY App to track inbound and outbound flights to the US.

American Airways is not to be outdone either; in fact, it has already begun several weeks ago to test the app which, therefore, will also land in Malpensa:

"Great return of American Airlines passenger flights to Milan Malpensa with the historic route to New York. The development of the VeryFLY App, tested by American Airlines on some routes, will allow the opening of Covid-free corridors with many countries. Passenger traffic will thus be able to resume as before, but safer."

American Airlines ad.

From Italy to the US, what are the connections?

The first question we need to ask ourselves is: can we go to America? Currently unfortunately given the current restrictions we have to submit to strict protocols that prevent us from going to the land of the stars and stripes.

You can go to the U.S., only if you have a regular visa who can currently obtaine students, workers, residents and a few other exceptions. Those moving between Italy and the United States, whether inbound or outbound, will still have to undergo a quarantine 10-day mandatory and an anti-hygienic test to avert Covid-19 positivity, unless you embark on a flight covid tested.

Travel insurance

A small unforeseen incident can cost thousands, ending up in intensive care hundreds of thousands. Therefore, although it is not mandatory, we recommend traveling with insurance, one solution is to take advantage of the coverages included by credit cards (which are therefore free), use a airline offering covid coverage ad hoc or pay for standard coverage.

In any case, if you fall into one of the categories that can land in the U.S., we have prepared an updated list of current direct flights Divided by airline:

Alitalia

Italy's national airline operates flights between Rome Fiumicino and New York JFK:

• Flights are back in operation and will be operated on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

American Airlines

It will reopen the Milan-New York route on April 3 and will operate daily at 11:10 am with arrival at 2:15 pm.

Delta Airlines

The airline operates from both Malpensa and Fiumicino airports with the following flights:

• The Malpensa-New York JFK route operating on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
• Throughout March, the Rome Fiumicino-Atlanta route will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Emirates

Travel with Emirates will be operating in June with Milan Malpensa - New York JFK route.

United Airlines

The American airline operates its flights from both Milan and Rome:

• From the first week of March, daily flights between Milan and New York EWR return to operation.
• Flights will also operate from Rome to New York EWR.

The advice is always to check the airline sites first, because weekly they are updated With the latest news.

As for restrictions, we can use the convenient tool put in place by SkyScanner, i.e., an interactive map to monitor restrictions on a country-by-country basis.