Easter

Dear flights, from Saturday departure to stopovers: here's how to save money at Easter

Flight prices take off, but there are plenty of alternative runways to follow (or to land on)

by Letizia Giostra

18 March 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Photograph of the situation
The X hour for packing
From Tirana to Krakow to Sofia: the money-saving stopover abroad

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Leave from Genoa to go to Palermo for the Easter holidays, but stopping first in Warsaw and then Bari. That makes a total flight time of 32 hours, but you save almost 50 euros.

The alternative would be to travel on Easter Day, where the price of flights plummets, dropping to 20 euros for some routes. Be careful though, because then you would have to leave immediately, as on Easter Monday the costs take off again.

It is the odyssey of those who live outside the region and wish to return home to celebrate sitting at the table with their family. An expense that weighs heavily on the pockets of the out-of-towners, whose hunt for the cheapest ticket is renewed every year, in addition to Christmas. A hunt for low-cost offers that is becoming increasingly difficult due to the numerous price increases, but not impossible.

A snapshot of the situation

All roads lead to Rome, except for the return. Assoutenti's monitoring takes a snapshot of ticket costs for internal flights, with some routes exceeding 200 euros.

For example, if we have to leave from the capital in the direction of Lamezia Terme with departure on Saturday and return on Tuesday, the direct flight reported as the best by the Skyscanner platform costs 269 euros.

Prices are set to rise now that the countdown to Easter is on, but low-cost alternatives do exist.

The X hour for packing

During Easter week, the cost for some routes is over EUR 50, such as Rome-Catania. The Monday remains the cheap day to leave, provided you have no other commitments during the week.

Alternatively, the Saturday - that is, Easter Eve - is the most advantageous day to go home.

When you have to plan your return journey and choose to travel by air, it is not only the day, but above all the time, that makes the difference. It is in fact the morning and evening flights that are the cheapest.

On the evening of Easter, for example, a Genoa-Palermo flight is among the cheapest times at just 18 euros. While from Milan with the destination always the Sicilian capital there is an ITA flight that lands at 2pm, in time for dessert. The same for planes departing from Bologna operated by Ryanair that do not cost more than EUR 30. If from the Eternal City you wish to reach Bari, the cost of the flight is 18 euros, but you have to be in Fiumicino as early as 5am.

From Tirana to Krakow to Sofia: the money-saving stopover abroad

There is a saying attributed to Hippocrates: 'Desperate times call for desperate measures', and this is exactly the case when we book our travel. In fact, the most extreme solution turns out to be the cheapest, namely to take one or more stops abroad to save on the cost of the ticket. In some cases, the hours between departures turn out to be long enough to be able to tour a European capital undisturbed.

And so it is that if our departure airport is in the North and our arrival airport in the South, air routes start speaking different languages.

For example, if our destination is Lamezia Terme and we depart from Genoa, Skyscanner proposes a 12 hour and 40 minute flight with two stopovers - in Cracow and Sofia - at the modest price of 65 euros The capital of Burgaria returns if the departure is from Bergamo-Orio al Serio. The hours are more, but the price is less, namely 35 euros.

Let us assume that we want to go to Brindisi. Taking off from Bergamo-Orio al Serio we then have to land in Katowice before arriving in Puglia. The total is a 19-hour flight. It is a similar story if our departure airport is Turin: the first solution involves two stopovers abroad in two different countries, namely Albania and Poland, at a cost of 82 euros; while the alternative involves a stopover in Tirana, and then proceeding to Bergamo. It gets a little longer, rising to 15 and a half hours for 87 euros. The Albanian capital returns if our destination becomes Bari: almost eight hours at high altitude for 54 euros.

The situation does not improve on the islands. A flight from Genoa to Catania must first stop over in Warsaw. You save about forty euros, but the itinerary would take almost a day.