Italy: alert for strikes in the major airports on Sept. 24th

Also, the employees of the following airlines will be striking on September 24: Easyjet, Wizz Air , Air Dolomiti

International arrivals into Italy at Milan Linate and Milan Malpensa Airports should note that baggage handlers will be striking on September 24. If you have checked baggage, there may be delays in picking up your luggage.

Because the September 24 strike involves a number of airports throughout Italy, flying domestically within Italy that day may be problematic throughout the country with flight delays and cancellations possible.

The official Italian government website for strike information is : https://scioperi.mit.gov.it/mit2/public/scioperi

SJ, I appreciate you posting both of these threads - my husband is traveling between two Italian airports on the 24th !! But luckily supposedly neither of his is affected.

Next week he is going to Turin (via train even with the stupid bus trip in the middle die to the August 2023 landslide) and getting his mother, then they will fly from Turin down to Reggio Calabria to go to Messina so his mother can visit her twin sister for their 88th (!) birthday. They fly back to Turin on the 24th.

So we checked all the articles, and were able to see that neither Turin nor Reggio Calabria is supposed to be affected -- for now. But we appreciate the heads up, and will keep our eyes open in case the situation evolves.

I have been affected by this as we were flying from Melbourne to Milan, arriving on 24/9.

After advice on the Air Travel Forum on Trip Advisor that it also involves the people who handle the air gates, it is likely to cause lots of cancellations and major delays.

We have changed our route and will now fly to Zurich rather than Milan and find our way to Varenna from there.

I don’t mind some delays in getting through the airport after landing, but I don’t want to wait for or lose any checked baggage.
My ticket this time has a generous baggage allowance, but it’s back to carryon only for this trip now, at least for the first flight.
I’m only in Rome less than 24 hrs, so I can envision a checked bag following me around the country and never getting to me. :O
First world problems!
I hope you all have smooth travels on the 24th.
I saw your thread on TA, Deb, you got some good responses.
Flyertalk is another forum that is useful too.

Travel is now an adventure in ways we never imagined years ago!

Just discovered this information and need help determining if it will affect my travel. We are due to arrive in Florence on Sept 24. Will this affect us? Besides the Article provided above, is there any other site I should be checking? Thank you.

S J, I did get some good responses, also some on different fora.

From the Air Travel Forum I got into a long PM session with an air travel poster. His advice is that it wasn't just baggage handlers but also the people who wheel out the air bridges and various other tasks.

He said he expected many flight cancellations and possible severe delays.

I called Emirates and whilst they wouldn't admit this, they also said it was possible, so that is why I decided to change to Zurich. It does add an extra three hour train journey to our already long trip, but at least we will get there - I hope.

I agree about Flyer Talk, it is a great resource too.

I think the thing to do if you are arriving into an Italian airport that particular day is to definitely bring carryon luggage only.
If you haven’t done it before, it takes a wee bit of practice, but it becomes a sort of game…”How low (weight) can you go”?!
A hand held luggage scale is worth it for weighing everything you are bringing.
It’s amazing the weight difference between two nearly identical T-shirts.
You can always check a bag on the way home if that is a non strike day.

I’m not sure about Florence, but if you first have to transit through the other airports mentioned above….take carryon only.

Thanks for the post and to acraven for alerting me. We leave Venice on Delta (tho KLM codeshare to AMS) on the 24th. For the first time, ever, to Europe, I have a checked size bag. I needed to bring hiking poles. I imagine one just waits for alerts from the airline?

I'm supposed to be flying United to Newark that day. I'm expecting problems, but I doubt I'll know anything before I get to the airport. I gather the unions striking in Venice provide support services at VCE. I imagine it will be hard for airlines to predict the impact until it is known how many people don't show up for work that day.

I spoke briefly to someone who lives on the Lido about the public-transit strike scheduled for Friday, September 20. He made these points:

• Vaporetti will be affected.
• There will be rush-hour vaporetto service so people can get to and from work.
• There will be vaporetto service throughout the day to islands reachable only by water.

We just got notification from Delta that our 11:40 am flight was cancelled and they can’t get us anything else out of Venice. So, heads up and suggestions welcome.

United is still selling tickets on my Sep 24 Venice-Newark flight, which of course means nothing. I'm going to have to wait and see what happens, because if I take the initiative, I'll pay a fortune for a new one-way ticket. My travel mate, dealing with American Airlines 5 days ago, ended up paying about $1450 for an aisle seat on both legs of her new Sep 23 flights to Phoenix. She did get a refund of her frequent-flier miles from the original purchase.

Jules, if you're in a bind due to commitments at home, you could check flight availability from Zurich, Munich and Vienna. It might be worth also checking Milan and Rome if Delta's telling you they have no seats out of Venice until Sep 25 or later.

I don't mind a degree of uncertainty regarding my return date, but I don't have much slack in my Schengen calendar. I suppose I may have to settle for a different routing home that allows me to transit a non-Schengen airport on Sep 25 or Sep 26, just to stop the Schengen clock.

That’s very annoying, Jules.
Did they give you a reason?
I hope you can get rebooked.
Your travel insurance should reimburse you, I hope, if need be.

Rebooked with Delta on Wednesday. Now need to find a hotel room. I don’t think it’s a given that KLM will reimburse hotel costs? Since this was out of their control?

FYI, for anyone flying Delta, seats out of Venice are very few and far between for the next week.

There should be hotel rooms available for Tuesday night in both Venice and Mestre since people planning to fly in on Tuesday may not get here that day. If my guess is wrong, you might consider Padua or Treviso if your flight doesn't depart too early on Wednesday.

I'm moving to Mestre for Monday night since I don't have anyone to share the cost of the room.

Still lots of Venice hotel rooms on 9/24 listed on Booking.com
Padua has even more with lower rates,

54 daily buses travel between Padua and VCE in 45 minutes.
www.fsbusitalia.it.