The Italian Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) has opened an inquiry after a dual-line telecommunications failure knocked out Milan Area Control Centre’s radar data feed on the evening of 14 July, forcing a two-hour “rate-zero” traffic freeze at eight northern airports. ENAV, the air-navigation service provider, said both primary and backup fibre links supplied by TIM failed simultaneously at 21:02, preventing controllers from receiving real-time surveillance data. During the outage 320 flights were cancelled or heavily delayed: ten at Milan Malpensa, eight at Turin Caselle, thirty at Bergamo Orio al Serio and multiple diversions to Venice and Bologna. Pisa and Florence airports kept terminals open overnight, installing 86 camp beds for stranded passengers, while SEA deployed 200 cots and free water at Malpensa and Linate. Normal operations resumed just before midnight, but ENAC president Pierluigi Di Palma told La Sicilia that a detailed report will be delivered to government within a week. The probe will examine whether contractual redundancy obligations were met and whether cyber-security played any role. ENAV CEO Pasqualino Monti stressed that “safety was never compromised” and praised engineers for restoring service “in record time”. For corporate mobility managers the incident is a reminder that Italy’s ATC network, although modernised ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, still relies on single points of telecommunications failure. Companies with critical same-day itineraries should build contingency time when connecting through northern hubs during the peak summer period and ensure travellers know their EU-261 compensation rights. The disruption comes just ten days after a nationwide four-hour air-transport strike and ahead of a 21 July ground-handling walk-out at Malpensa, underlining a summer of operational volatility that could affect executive travel and air-cargo schedules alike.
Source: La Sicilia
