A 24-hour strike by Alitalia staff is likely to wreak havoc on domestic air travel.
Wednesday 9 October the National Air Transport Federation (FNTA), which brings together ANPAC, ANPAV and ANP, has called a protest that will involve pilots and flight attendants. The airline estimates that 70% of passengers will be able to fly despite the protest, but the inconvenience for travelers still risks being huge.
Alitalia has already published a list of canceled flights for 9 October, containing 221 routes, and announced that "as a result of the flight cancellations on 9 October due to the 24-hour strikes, the Company was forced to also cancel some connections in the evening of 8 October and in the early morning of 10 October”. They have already been in detail 22 flights scheduled for the evening of 8 October and for the morning of 10 October were cancelled.
To understand if your flight will be affected by the strike, you must also take into consideration that the unions have announced the observance of two bands of guarantee. Alitalia aircraft will take off from 7.00 to 10.00 and from 18.00 to 21.
“To limit the inconvenience of passengers, Alitalia has activated an extraordinary plan which provides for the use of more capacious aircraft on domestic and international routes, with the aim of rebooking travelers involved in cancellations on the first available flights of the day", says the company which in any case invites passengers with flights scheduled for 9 October to "check the status of your flight, before going to the airport, on the alitalia.com website, by calling the toll-free number 800.65.00.55 (from Italy) or the number +39.06.65649 (from abroad), or by contacting the travel agency where they purchased the ticket".
Passengers who have purchased an Alitalia ticket to travel between the evening of 8 and the morning of 10 October - continues the company - in the event of cancellation or change to the time of their flight, will be able change the reservation without any penalty or ask for a refund of the ticket (only in the event that the flight has been canceled or has suffered a delay of more than 5 hours) until 24 October".
At the basis of the protest called by the unions there is the chaos that the company has been experiencing at a corporate level for months. The National Federation of Air Transport sent a letter to the Mise in which it expresses "concern" for the latest developments related to "the possible definition of the consortium seem to distance the possibility of positively closing the ongoing negotiation between FS, MEF, Atlantia and Delta on the recovery and relaunch plan". Roughly speaking: the fear is that Atlantia will take a step back, once again blowing up plans to save Alitalia.
