On Fri, 4 Dec 2015, Tom P wrote:

Close enough. MXP and BGY are each about fifty kilometers from the
center of Milan,

I wouldn't call 50km "close". Frankfurt International is 14km from the
city center, Dusseldorf International is just 10km from the center.

Linate is indeed about 10 km from the centre of Milan.

It is true that BGY and MXP are the same distance, but the former has
only coach via motorway direct connection, the latter has trains (*).
But nothing beats Linate which has urban bus and affordable taxi.

If you have a flight from Paris to Santiago around midnight, and in the
middle of the afternoon you realize on the TV teletext that the
connecting flight from Milan is going to be altered because of a strike,
you can pack hastily and run to Linate and try (and succeed) to be put
on an earlier flight. You can hardly do that with MXP.

(*) the main fact is that such trains depart from 2 (3) different
stations. This makes no difference when you arrive at MXP, you catch the
first train to Milan (wherever) and then continue by metro. But when you
are leaving, you have to decide in advance where you take the train from
Cadorna or the train from Garibaldi (from Centrale it is just a waste of
time via the "umbrella handle"), so actually the frequency is halved.