A typical summer evening is turning into a long wait for hundreds of travelers stuck in the boarding halls of Cagliari-Elmas airport. The reason? Not a local failure, but a malfunction involving the radar system of the North-West Italy Area Control Center, which controls the air movements at high altitude over Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria.
The sudden and unexpected blockade was triggered late this evening, forcing the airports in the area – including Malpensa, Linate, Bergamo and Turin – to suspend or severely limit take-offs and landings. The consequences were not long in hitting Sardinia too, with delays and cancellations in succession, particularly at the Cagliari airport.
The Cagliari-Bergamo flight operated by Ryanair has in fact been cancelled. Passengers waiting, timetable displays changing minute by minute, stalled luggage and nerves on edge: the scene is that of a midsummer déjà-vu, when a gear out of place in a very delicate system can cause a chain reaction. But Cagliari is not the only one paying the price for the failure. Also in Olbia, for example, the 8:00 pm flight to Milan-Linate was diverted to Pisa, while other routes are awaiting real-time instructions from the operational management.