Business Class Flights to Bologna, Italy

Located in northern Italy, the city of Bologna is the capital of the country’s Emilia Romagna region. The city is home to about 400,000 people. More than 1 million people live in Bologna’s greater metropolitan area. Bologna is known for its distinctive cuisine and for its well-preserved medieval architecture. The city itself has a long history dating back to the 3rd century BCE when the area where the current city now stands was settled by the ancient Etruscan civilization. 

Flights to Bologna, Italy, arrive at Guglielmo Marconi International Airport (BLQ). The airport is located about four miles north of the city center and is one of Italy’s busiest, handling more than 8 million passengers per year. Bologna’s airport is named for Guglielmo Marconi, an electrical engineer and inventor who was a native of the city. Along with German electrical engineer, Karl Ferdinand Braun, Marconi is credited with inventing the radio. He and Braun were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1909, for their work.

Many of the business travelers who fly to Bologna work for companies in the industrial sector. The city has long been an important manufacturing center in southern Europe, home to factories producing high-end automobiles, textiles, heavy construction machinery, clothing, and footwear along with plants that produce agricultural products.

Students from other parts of Italy and from other European countries often take cheap flights to Bologna to study at its famous university, the University of Bologna. The school is credited with being the oldest continuously operating university in the world, as well as the first school in the world to award degrees to students upon completion of their studies. The University of Bologna was founded in the early 11th century. According to some sources, the word “universitas” was coined at the school’s founding. Today, the University of Bologna has an enrollment of more than 80,000 students.

Bologna is also a popular city for tourists. Leisure travelers who fly to Bologna often come to the city to see its medieval buildings, porticos, and towers, for which the city is well known. Once gates in Bologna’s ancient fortification wall, the city’s porticos were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021. 

Other popular sites in the city include its open-air markets and historic churches, of which there are several. Among Bologna’s most iconic churches is the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, which was built upon the ruins of an earlier church in the early 18th century. The Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca is located on hill overlooking the main part of the city and can be seen from many vantage points.

Visitors also book flights to Bologna, Italy, to attend the city’s festivals, which take place throughout the year. Several of Bologna’s festivals feature live music, including the Bologna Jazz Festival and the Bologna Festival, which features classical music performances. Other popular events in Bologna include the Danza Urbana contemporary dance festival, the Future Film Festival, the Homework electronic music festival, and the Human Rights Film Festival.

Basketball fans are also among the groups that fly to Bologna on a regular basis. Unlike many cities in Europe, where football (soccer) is the most popular spectator sport, Bologna is known for its two professional basketball teams, Virtus and Fortitudo. Bologna is also home to the offices of the Italian Basketball League and to two basketball stadiums, the Segafredo Arena, which has a capacity of 10,000, and the Pala Dozza, which can hold up to 6,000 people. If the name Segafredo rings any bells, that’s because the arena’s sponsor is Segafredo Zanetti®, a world-renown producer of coffee. 

All visitors who fly to Bologna enjoy the city’s signature cuisine. Bologna is the birthplace of Bolognese sauce, a meat-based pasta sauce that is popular around the world. The city’s is also known for its cured meats, such as salami and prosciutto, and for its wine, as Bologna is in close proximity to Italy’s Modena wine region.