Bergamo-Orio al Serio, Italy’s third-busiest airport and a key Ryanair hub for northern Italy, was forced to suspend all flight operations from 18:00 local time on 3 January after the airport’s Instrument Landing System (ILS) malfunctioned during dense fog. The outage left arriving aircraft unable to obtain reliable glide-path data and triggered an immediate ground stop under ENAC safety rules.
The closure could not have come at a worse time: the first weekend after the Christmas holidays traditionally sees heavy volumes of leisure travellers returning home and business passengers heading out for the new year. In the seven-hour blackout 26 departures were cancelled outright, six inbound flights diverted to Milan-Malpensa and Verona, and a further seven rotations rescheduled for 4 January. Airport operator SACBO said engineers restored the ILS shortly after midnight, but crew-duty limits and aircraft displacement meant knock-on delays continued well into Sunday morning.
Scenes of hundreds of passengers sleeping on the terminal floor and on baggage belts have already prompted criticism from consumer groups. Ryanair, which accounts for almost 80 per cent of the airport’s traffic, offered fee-free rebooking but not overnight accommodation, citing the extraordinary-circumstances exemption under EU261. Trade body Assaeroporti noted that the incident underscores the need for contingency plans at single-runway airports that handle more than 15 million passengers a year.
![Thousands Stranded Overnight as Technical Failure Shuts Bergamo Airport]()
Travellers scrambling to adjust their itineraries would do well to ensure that entry documents are up-to-date. VisaHQ’s self-service portal (https://www.visahq.com/italy/) streamlines Italian visa checks, fast-tracks applications and provides real-time status alerts—useful tools when last-minute rerouting via Malpensa, Verona or other Schengen gateways becomes necessary.
For businesses, the disruption highlights the importance of travel-risk monitoring and flexible ticketing policies: Bergamo handles a significant share of Italy’s SME export traffic to Germany, Spain and the UK. Mobility managers with personnel transiting through northern Italy this week should check inter-airport transfer times and consider routing via Milan-Malpensa or rail links until schedules stabilise.
SACBO says a root-cause report will be submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority within ten days. The episode is likely to speed up a €35 million redundancy-systems upgrade, planned for 2027, and could trigger a broader review of Italy’s regional-airport resilience ahead of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Games.
The closure could not have come at a worse time: the first weekend after the Christmas holidays traditionally sees heavy volumes of leisure travellers returning home and business passengers heading out for the new year. In the seven-hour blackout 26 departures were cancelled outright, six inbound flights diverted to Milan-Malpensa and Verona, and a further seven rotations rescheduled for 4 January. Airport operator SACBO said engineers restored the ILS shortly after midnight, but crew-duty limits and aircraft displacement meant knock-on delays continued well into Sunday morning.
Scenes of hundreds of passengers sleeping on the terminal floor and on baggage belts have already prompted criticism from consumer groups. Ryanair, which accounts for almost 80 per cent of the airport’s traffic, offered fee-free rebooking but not overnight accommodation, citing the extraordinary-circumstances exemption under EU261. Trade body Assaeroporti noted that the incident underscores the need for contingency plans at single-runway airports that handle more than 15 million passengers a year.
Travellers scrambling to adjust their itineraries would do well to ensure that entry documents are up-to-date. VisaHQ’s self-service portal (https://www.visahq.com/italy/) streamlines Italian visa checks, fast-tracks applications and provides real-time status alerts—useful tools when last-minute rerouting via Malpensa, Verona or other Schengen gateways becomes necessary.
For businesses, the disruption highlights the importance of travel-risk monitoring and flexible ticketing policies: Bergamo handles a significant share of Italy’s SME export traffic to Germany, Spain and the UK. Mobility managers with personnel transiting through northern Italy this week should check inter-airport transfer times and consider routing via Milan-Malpensa or rail links until schedules stabilise.
SACBO says a root-cause report will be submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority within ten days. The episode is likely to speed up a €35 million redundancy-systems upgrade, planned for 2027, and could trigger a broader review of Italy’s regional-airport resilience ahead of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Games.
