Optimism surrounding Malpensa: job boom in 2015

The new frontier of employment in Varese Province is Malpensa Airport. This is what the assessments and forecasts made by SEA, the company that manages the Milan airports, say. In five years, the number of jobs in the airport and related businesses, will already double: 172,000 jobs in 2015, accounting for €16 billion-worth of business, in 2015, and 314,000 jobs in 2030, accounting for €30 billion-worth of business. A study carried out by the Bocconi University predicts exponential growth for the airport and its surrounding area.

In short, despite of the economic crisis, Malpensa is going to save us. SEA and the Bocconi University have expressed their opinions: we need to focus on young people and Malpensa. How? Easy, they say, by combining the prospects for growth of the former with those of the latter. And so, while, on the one hand, a study carried out by the Bocconi University predicts strong growth in the volume of traffic in Malpensa (25 million passengers in 2015, 49 million in 2030), on the other, SEA, who manage Malpensa and Linate Airports, want to link this growth to the territory and the world of school. SEA want to encourage students to “have a finger in the pie” in the complex airport system, to understand the mechanisms, the potential, and to study the effects on employment and on the economy. And last but not least, to open the doors to what could become a job for life, after all, in an airport, there is plenty of choices: shopkeepers, all kinds of technical jobs, catering, aerospace design, language assistants for foreign passengers, managerial posts, and anything else that revolves around the huge world of the airport.

 

So, according to SEA’s expectations, Malpensa is destined to become the driving force behind the economic growth of the area, bringing development, employment and school education.

With this viewpoint, SEA President, Giuseppe Bonomi, and the Regional Schools Director, Giuseppe Colosio, have signed an agreement protocol, with which they intend to link the processes of school education and the world of airport work.

If Colosio’s words are true, “No longer is there a time for study and time for work; both are destined to become increasingly intertwined.” An airport that has a prospect for growth in employment that is destined to reach 314,000 employees in 2030 is a train that we cannot afford to miss. That is the reason for this “new collaboration between the airport and students”, in order to “involve both in a process of social, cultural and educational growth.”

“It’s an agreement that already exists, in part, but we want to extend and rationalise it,” explains the Director of the Provincial School Office, Claudio Merletti.

With school trips, training periods and participation projects, hundreds of students have already come into contact with Malpensa Airport over the last 3 years, 350 in training that ranged from passenger assistance to computer science, photography and catering.

Moreover, from the excellence of the Falcone Hotel School, to the designers from the ISIS technical institute, in Gallarate, the schools have already had the opportunity to participate in and learn about the complex world of an airport. In addition, 600 students from the Polytechnic of Milan have taken part in two courses on the “Logistical Organisation of Air Traffic” and on the “Airport Management of Air Transport” .

In short, the agreement between SEA and the world of education seeks to make business related to Malpensa not only an economic factor, but also an intellectual one, “filling” the production processes of a huge machine like an airport machine with students.