I just checked the seekitaly.com website (thanks yk) and there is a "4 hour nationwide air strike of Enav flight controllers" that begins 25 minutes after my flight is scheduled to take off from Venice on May 17.

What happens during these strikes and how does it affect air travel out of Italy?

Jocelyn, I almost had 1st hand info. Before I left there was a 4hr ENAV strike planned for March 21 from 1200-1600. My Rome flight was due to take-off at 1155 .
I called BA on the 20th to confirm the flight and asked them about the strike, they knew nothing about it.
Also at check-in I asked and they hadn't heard of a strike scheduled for that day. I even showed the woman my print-out of the Italian strike website.
So I have to assume it was cancelled while I was in Italy.
Hopefully you will have the same luck. Regards, Walter

Thanks for passing on the seekitaly.com website! We arrive in Italy May 7th the day after a May 6th strike. I hope we do not have many delays. We are scheduled to depart May 18 the day after the May 17th strike! Good luck to all of us. I was not aware of this site until now, great information.

Another related question: are the majority of transportation-related strikes in Italy planned way in advance? Or could we be surprised with a rail strike while we're there?

anyone?

Apparently there is a law (I tried to translate the text of it using Babelfish, but the translation is vague)that requires most rail strikes to be announced in advance. So generally you should be able to find out about them on seekitaly.com.

The same law also requires some minimal service to be maintained, but again, because I don't speak Italian and the automatic translation is less than coherent, I cannot be more explicit about the details.

Thanks, Sue.