Italy's summer of strikes and an erupting volcano: is the trip still worth it?

Italy has had a rough two weeks. A nationwide aviation strike on 5 July grounded ground staff, security and air traffic controllers at Rome Fiumicino and Milan's airports, with easyJet crew joining the walkout. The same weekend, Mount Etna erupted, sending an ash cloud roughly 4,500 metres into the sky and forcing Catania-Fontanarossa — Sicily's busiest airport — to suspend all arrivals and departures for two full days. And a fresh 24-hour ground-handling strike is already confirmed for Milan Malpensa on 21 July. If an Italy trip is booked or on your shortlist, here's what actually happened and whether the value case still holds.

What actually happened

The 5 July strike combined separate grievances — ground handlers, airport security and, in some cases, air traffic control — into overlapping 24-hour walkouts at Rome and Milan, with around 130 flights ultimately cancelled once Etna's eruption piled onto the same weekend. Etna's Voragine crater opened a new fissure in late June, and the 5 July eruption threw enough ash over eastern Sicily that Catania closed completely, diverting roughly 50 flights to Palermo and beyond before reopening two days later as the alert level eased from red to orange. Ryanair, easyJet, ITA Airways, British Airways, Wizz Air, KLM and Lufthansa were all affected. The next confirmed date is 21 July, when ground-handling staff at Malpensa strike for 24 hours — Rome and Venice are unaffected that day.

Your rights if you're caught in it

Italian strikes run around protected bands of 07:00–10:00 and 18:00–21:00, so flights in those windows are generally guaranteed; anything outside them is at risk. Ground-handling and ATC strikes are usually classified as "extraordinary circumstances" under EU261, so cash compensation typically doesn't apply — but you still keep the right to a refund or rerouting, plus meals and accommodation if you're stranded. Check your specific flight against the strike's guaranteed list before you assume the worst, and don't assume travel insurance automatically covers strike disruption — confirm it does.

The value read nobody's mentioning

Here's what the headlines miss: none of this changes Italy's underlying price picture much. Our real-feel index — which tracks each destination against its own multi-decade currency-and-inflation history, never against other countries — puts Italy at the 1st percentile of its own range right now, meaning it's about as expensive as it's ever been relative to itself over more than 40 years of data. And yet, in absolute terms, it's still roughly 10% cheaper than Hong Kong for the same basket of goods. Strikes and volcanic ash are disruption risk, not a pricing signal — the trip is neither newly cheap nor newly expensive because of them.

What this means for your trip

If you're flying through Rome or Milan around 21 July, build slack into your connection times and keep an eye on strike-tracker sites, not three-week-old headlines. If Catania or eastern Sicily is on the itinerary, have a backup plan through Palermo — Etna is active and further ash closures aren't ruled out. Beyond that, book as you normally would: Italy's price level hasn't moved, it's simply having a logistically messy July. See where Italy sits against its own history on its destination page, and browse the wider Europe hub for what else is good value this month.