We will be staying just outside of Venice and need to get to Malpensa airport in Milan by 7:45am Friday morning. At that hour of the morning what type of traffic should we expect to encounter during the drive?

Are you sure you want to do this? Venice to Milan Centrale is a 3 hour TRAIN ride. Auto would be more, and traffic unpredictable. Malpensa is quite a bit out from the city center, but there is public trnasportation easily available from Centrale.

Is there some reason you have to drive from Venice to Milan's airport? If you must be at Malpensa by 7:45am, I'd recommend travelling to Milan the evening before! Preferably, by train.

I second the above recommendation. BTW, that drive on the 4 and 9 Autostrade across northern Italy is very unpleasant. I did it from Como to Venice and it's loaded with 18 wheelers.

I think you need to drive down the day before.

Or better yet get rid of the car and take the train. Even the train ride is 3 to 3-1/2 hours Venice to Milan.

I agree you should stay the night in Milan. The highway can be very congested even very early. There is alot of truck traffic. Also the ring road around Milan is prone to traffic jams, you would have to leave at 3 am to make sure you didn't miss your flight

Surely you jest !

Mappy shows drive time at 3 hours and 20 minutes. You would also need to allow time to drop off the rental car - and the usual airport circling to get to where you need to be. With the possibility of accidents or road construction I would think you need to leave at least 4.5 hours.

Hardly worth going to bed at all. Why not stay the night before near the airport?