I don't think that the Italy strike has anything to do with the US government - if I am on the flight out of Venice on Feb 15, I stop in London. If the government shuts down again like it did last week Friday, I hope I my flight to the US isn't cancelled. London would be a great place to be for a few days, however.

I can't see that causing any problems on the timescale of interest here. The US air traffic system would certainly continue to operate through the following weekend ... and probably for a couple weeks longer.

My problem with this shutdown is that it already forced me to postpone my next trip to Rome. Another might force me to postpone the postponement. :(


Personally, I'd ground myself in Italy, not England. But YMMV. ;) :D

I'm in Venice now. The train strike did not seem to cancel trains (maybe a few?), many were delayed a bit. I made a train about 1 pm and arrived in Venice about 2:30 pm.

The air traffic control strike, last I saw, affects flights from 1 - 5 pm on Friday. My flight was at 12:50 pm and BA moved me to the morning flight at 8:35. Not thrilled to have to get up so early, but that's life.

That's great! Strikes are an annoyance, but there is usually a work around. If the strike went from 24 hours to 4 hours, that's great.

Thanks for this. I'm on the FCO-LCY flight on 15th, but I'm flexible so I may just turn up to the airport and see what happens.

Sophiesophie, remember I said a month ago to sit tight, as flight plans are fluid, and it's too soon to tell? Just call BA and make contingency plans. So, first the 24 hour strike was reduced to 4 hours. I was just reading an Italian newspaper and read that the February 15th strike was called off altogether, so it was much worry about nothing. Plan B's can be booking a hotel for the night at a refundable rate, calling the airline and see if they can keep you on your original flight but back you up by also getting you a reservation for a different flight. My reading of the article was that airport operations were normal on February 15th.

I didn't initiate my flight change. BA informed me by email on Feb 8th that they changed my flight. I didn't see the mail until the next day. I checked some websites to see if my initial flight in the afternoon was still scheduled and it was not. However, I checked again when I returned home and I see that the flight did leave about 25 min late, so I assumed that strike had been called off. Believe me, I would have preferred to have slept in...