Simon Calder says: air traffic strike will be far from bellissimo

 
Romance lost: travellers to Venice face strike action if they fly out this Saturday
Simon Calder22 September 2014

Is the Italian air-traffic controllers’ strike planned for this Saturday still going ahead? I have a journey booked with BA, flying to Venice on September 27 and returning from Athens on October 6. Just in case, I booked a fully flexible flight to Venice on September 26. If the strike goes ahead and I fly out on September 26, and I don’t use the first leg of my return journey will BA cancel my return flight from Athens? - Brian Moroney, Hemel Hempstead

Italy’s air-traffic controllers are preparing to strike from 10am to 6pm, Italian time, on Saturday, September 27. At the start of the month, a four-hour strike by the same group of workers caused dozens of flights to be cancelled and many more to be delayed, including several BA departures. But the likely impact will not be clear until the day before the planned strike, so the airlines cannot predict any earlier whether specific flights may be affected.

To avoid the risk that yours may be cancelled, you could fly out on Friday, though that flexible ticket will have cost a fortune. It could also cause problems — standard practice when you fail to show up for an outbound departure is that your entire booking is cancelled. Given the unusual circumstances, if you talk to BA in advance, you might avoid this.

In your position, however, I would cash in the flexible Friday flight, and keep my fingers crossed, on the basis that BA has five Venice flights that day — two from Gatwick, two from Heathrow and one from London City — and can probably get you aboard one of them, or to a nearby city such as Verona. BA will typically “consolidate” departures, using larger aircraft on flights that do operate.

Email your queries to s@hols.tv

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