Hey buddy, know where I can catch a plane?

Italy is only 33 times smaller than Canada (and my old home province, Manitoba, is only 3 times larger than ALL of Italy, a country of some 58 million people), and yet the country “only” has a record 101 airports, 41 of them for commercial use! Roughly speaking, that’s an airport every 70 kms or so.

With the disastrous Alitalia financial situation (the quasi belly-up national airline company which was once one of the best in Europe) which has made the companyt lose a whopping 4 billion euros in the last few years, or roughly 3 million euros per day, the airport situation in Italy, along with the garbage in Naples, ain’t one of the best in Europe! Upon entering the new government, Silvio Berlusconi has asked his predecessor, Romano Prodi, for 300 million euros in order to still keep the company in the air until someone comes along to save it (Air France/KLM and Aeroflot have pulled out of the deal, no doubt due to strong pressure from the powerful trade unions). The astounding thing is that the money should be returned by December 31st of this year (yeah, sure)!

More red-tape-Italian-style bureaucracy can be found in Rome’s second major airport, Ciampino (which is also used by the Italian air force). Ciampino, unlike Fiumicino, is used primarily by low-cost carriers, such as Ryanair. The advantage of Ciampino is that it’s located closer to downtown Rome, and this is very convenient to the Irish airline company, but unfortunately is also located basically in a residential area. This means that flights that should arrive at say 11.30 pm can eventually arrive even at 2 in the morning due to delays. The positive thing for Ciampino is that passengers are up now to 5 million per year. The negative thing is for the health and sanity of residents, they want the airport moved. But where? Some have come up with the idea of Viterbo, the so-called town of the “popes”, located just 100 km from the Eternal City. Ryanair wants no part of that deal and threatens to sue the Italians. The problem with Viterbo is that the runway would have to be extended by approximately 1 km in order to accommodate large aircraft and trains are rather antiquated and bulging with daily commuters to Rome. Some experts suspect that the airport will no doubt be completed…in about 10 years’ time!