Another news story said that Thursday's strike canceled 74 flights.

The article below says 66 were canceled on Saturday. And 44 out of 130 were *planned* to be canceled as of Sunday morning.

Another article said the Union canceled it's planned strike for Monday but doesn't know if all the employees will show up.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/fee...ap2467054.html

Regards, Walter

Hmmm, a strike in Italy....file this under "Dog bites Man"

Hmmmm...3 strikes in 4 days with the 5th day iffy, sounds kinda major don't ya think .
Regards, Walter

A story in a strike in Italy - - that counts (number of) services canceled - - if it fails to indicate how many (travelers, in this case) actually left stranded/unserved... is indeed a dog bites man" story.

Strikes in Italy have a high incidence of inconveniencing... but not actually leaving any (many) travelers actually stranded, because other services continue.

Therefore, this might even be a "dog bites man, fails to break skin" story...



Best wishes,

Rex

Rex I was looking at it this way but we'll have to see if anything is written about it later.

As a *guess* using the number of flights on Sunday which was 130 as the norm.

74 out of 130 flights canceled on Thursday with one day Friday to recover, then 66 out of 130 on Saturday and then they estimated 44 out of 130.

If 130 is the norm in 4 days there should have been 520 flights.
If Friday *was* at the 130 norm
the total that actually flew in those 4 days was 336.

520 vs 336 seems a bit hard to recover from in such a short time.
Even if they put people on other carriers there is only so much room. Plus the domestic flights I assume are primarily Alitalia's tuff.

Again only a guess .
Regards, Walter

If I'm reading it correctly the lead story on http://ansa.it (an Italian online newspaper)
says that 121 flights were canceled on Sunday and the 4 day total is 250? Regards, Walter

Ore calde anche nel confronto diretto tra sindacati e vertici aziendali. Previste nella giornata di lunedi' 250 cancellazioni, dopo le 121 di domenica,

Hi PL: I read that as they predict or expect 250 cancellations on Monday, after the 121 cancellations from Sunday.

I take that back. It looks like that by Monday morning they expect 250 cancellations after having included the 121 from Sunday.

I yield to the experts.

Hi Walter; I meant no offense with my sarcasm. We've had to deal with strikes several times in our Italy travels and sometimes humor is the best medicine

I wanted to share an Italian strike experience we had several years ago. We flew into Milan, arriving early in the morning, with hotel reservations on Isola Pescatore on Lago Maggiore. We had planned on taking the train to Stresa, and then a boat to the island. Well, there was a train strike which wasn't at all convenient. Jet lagged and contemplating our options, we decided a taxi at that point was worth the splurge.

We arrived in Stresa - so far so good. Except the water taxi's were on strike as well so we had to rent a private boat to take us to the island. The happy ending was that we arrived on the island in time for a most wonderful lunch!

Oh, but there's more...our next leg several days later was Stresa to Lugano, Switzerland via train...except the trains were back on strike! Fortunatly, the boats were now running, so we took the ferry from Stresa to Locarno, where we could catch a Swiss train - I don't think the Swiss tolerate strikes ;-)

While stressful at the time, we can laugh about it now and look back on it as a learning experience. File this under "Be Prepared".

I "love Italy" but strikes and Italians seem to go hand in hand.

The only time I got a "bit" worried was in Milan in 1978..the Red Brigades had kidnapped and than eventually killed PM Moro and Italy was shall we say in a bit of a turmoil. Oh my, the demonstrations throughout Milan certainly were shall we say interesting.

Alitalia is in big financial trouble and the employees are MAD. So constant strikes can be expected. And keep in mind that sometimes the Italian Traffic Controllers go on strike also so it does not matter what airline you are flying with..you will have a problem. At that point best to just go and have a glass of wine and just live with "la vita dolce".

We flew from Bologna-Rome and Rome-JFK yesterday, Sunday. While our trans-Atlantic flight proceeded with a 90 minute delay, most of the other Alitalia flights on the board were cancelled. The ticket agent called this a work slowdown, rather than a strike. More of the same is expected today. The employees are very angry at management but I must say that this did not affect their courtesy or the service on the flights. The ticket agent told us that, if our flight were to be cancelled, she would do her best to get us home on another carrier. Luckily, this did not happen.

39Steps; Of course not, none was taken .

It was just my point that this wasn't just a normal everyday Italian strike. And it hasn't ended yet.
Regards, Walter

if you had an alitalia flight from rome to paris,(that you could not miss)and just a 3 hour layover in paris before your flight home, would you spend the $230 neccessary to change flights?

I don't understand the question. What was the original flight plan? What is the new one costing $$$? Why is the change necessary?

the original flight plan was to fly from rome to paris on alitalia, then paris to home on airfrance with just a 3 hour layover. my ticket info said there is a $100 cost per ticket change plus $30 fee from expedia if i wanted to change the alitalia flight to airfrance.

I see. Only you can know how important it is for you to make the flight home. If your flight from Rome is cancelled, Alitalia will try to book you on another flight. Nothing is sure with traveling today so who knows, really, what will happen. When is your flight? I imagine that the work stoppage is over by now but maybe others have more recent information.

thanks for your input. just to make sure, i called expedia and they assured me that while i was flying alitalia, it was an air france flight (whatever that means). so, they assured me i would make my "french connection".