Galileo Galilei Airport, Pisa, Italy

We landed there a Saturday morning for a one week vacation in Tuscany and left one week later, a Saturday Afternoon.

Arriving was perfect. The airport was empty, we got off the plane, luggage arrived very quickly and off we went.

Flying out was a totally different story. We arrived to the airport two hours in advance and there was a huge mess. Travelers like us running in all directions. We were looking at the small displays but couldn’t find our flight. After a couple of minutes they displayed a message saying there’s a strike going on and that some of the flights were canceled or delayed. No indication of which flights were actually affected. We couldn’t find anyone able to tell us about our flight. So after waiting for a while, we noticed the Easy-Jet logo appeared at one of the check-in counters. We went over there and that was our flight. There was no announcement though. Check-in went OK, and so did the security check – although the place was very, very crowded.

Then we arrived at the boarding area. Again, no indication of our flight. No idea for how long we’ll have to wait. We finally managed to find an airport employee who told us the Easy-Jet flight to Paris is going to be next at “that gate”. So we went there. The flight before didn’t even start to board.

All seats in the hall were already taken and twice as many people were standing. After an hour or so the flight before finished boarding and after another half an hour our flight’s number appeared on the display by the gate. So we were waiting, waiting… after a while, our flight number on the screen was replaced with another one. There was a huge line behind me – basically a full plane worth of people – and nobody seemed to notice anything. No announcement, of course. So I grab an airport official passing by and ask: “sorry, isn’t the Easy-Jet flight to Paris supposed to board at this gate?”. The guy looks at me and and says: “Oh, it’s at this other gate now”. So basically they had switched gates for the flights without telling anyone. Go wonder. So everybody heard the guy and we all started to run at the other gate. And of course passengers at the other gate started to run towards us, because all of a sudden they realized their flight was moved to our gate. I’ll let you imagine the clash.

So, at some point, we managed to board. But the plane wouldn’t leave because the Pisa Airport staff had loaded our luggage in another plane, and the luggage from that flight was loaded in our plane. Luckily, they realized that before we took off. After this got settled – it took a while – the plane moved a little, but then it immediately stopped. The pilot told us the tractor used to push the plane on the track for takeoff broke down, so we had to wait for another one to become available.

So, what was a really great vacation in Tuscany ended with a disaster. Problem is, Galileo Galilei in Pisa is a very small airport, but Tuscany is surfing the tourism wave and they squeeze in it three to four times the traffic it was designed to handle. And it’s a nightmare. The structures are not appropriate – halls are small and have very few seats for waiting, it’s getting really hot and there is no air conditioning, passengers are barely informed of anything and the personnel is not trained to handle this amount of traffic.