Lugano to Milan Malpensa Airport

You should take the bus operated by Flixbus or the train from Lugano to Milan the evening before and stay in a hotel near the train station and take the Malpensa Express train or a bus from there to the airport.

Flixbus operates buses from Lugano to Malpensa airport but they don't show any leaving early enough for you to catch a 10am flight or the schedule for June 2020 is not out yet

There is now direct train service every hour, taking about 1 1/2 hours. There is a train at 5:05 am that will get you there by 6:41 am, which should be plenty for a 10 am intercontinental flight.

To get a 5AM train from Lugano you need to get up at 330ish? Really going to sleep well thinking about getting up that early?

Go the night before

rf,

I tend to agree with previous comments that it would probably be a better idea to travel to Milan the day prior to your flight, especially since your flight departs at 10:00. There are frequent trains from Lugano to Milano Centrale, with a travel time of ~1H:20M, so getting there is very easy.

Given the early hour of your flight and the fact that you'll have to be there for check-in and security at least two hours early, staying at the Milan Malpensa Sheraton would be the easiest option, but of course not the cheapest. You can walk directly from the hotel into the airport terminals.

In the same situation I'd probably spend most of the day prior to the flight touring Lugano, and then travel to Milan in the late afternoon and book a hotel in Milan, probably the Garda or Berna which are close to Milano Centrale. That would allow a few hours to see some of the sights of Milan and have a fine meal on my last night in Italy. If the flight is a regional flight I'd use the 06:55 departure of the Malpensa Express, which arrives at the airport at 07:46. If the flight is international, I'd probably try the 06:25 departure, arriving MXP at 07:16.