Two nationwide air-traffic-controller (ATC) walkouts—one from 10:00-18:00 and a second from 13:00-17:00—hit Sicily’s main gateways on 18 July, forcing the cancellation of more than 80 flights at Palermo Falcone-Borsellino and Catania Fontanarossa airports. The industrial action, called by Filt-CGIL, UIL Trasporti, UNICA, FIT-CISL and UGL-TA, is part of a wider dispute over staffing levels ahead of the EU Entry/Exit System (EES) rollout. Impacted carriers include ITA Airways, Ryanair, easyJet, Lufthansa and Vueling, with routes to Rome, Milan, London, Paris and Madrid most affected. ENAC confirmed that legally protected “safety windows” (07:00-10:00 and 18:00-21:00) allowed a limited number of essential services to operate, but many business travellers faced same-day re-routing via Naples or Malta. Companies with cross-Mediterranean supply chains scrambled to move critical personnel by ferry from Villa San Giovanni to Messina, while freight forwarders shifted high-value cargo to overnight trucking. The walkout underscores continued industrial-relations volatility in Italy’s aviation sector as new shift patterns linked to biometric border controls add workload for ATC staff. Although the strike formally ended at 18:00, residual delays cascaded through Rome Fiumicino, Berlin and London Gatwick. Travel managers are advised to keep waivers on file: ITA Airways is offering rebooking within seven days, and most low-cost carriers allow fee-free changes until 21 July. Future ATC protests cannot be ruled out; employers should register travellers on the civil-protection SMS alert system when booking flights into Sicily during the summer peak.
Source: La Sicilia
