Border closed, anger of Italians blocked at London airport

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On the afternoon of Sunday 20 December, at Gatwick airport, in the new but very uncomfortable North Terminal, a huge bridge structure, there were many people waiting to board the British Airways flight to Bologna. All Italians: families, businessmen, students or young waiters. Of the 700,000 compatriots living in England, half of whom in London alone, Italy’s sixth largest city by population, many were preparing, last but not least, to return home for Christmas. But they never left.
The passengers of flight BA0542 have taken off, like all residents in English territory, blocked. Italy has closed its borders with the United Kingdom: no one can leave the country for Italy. Chancellor Luigi Di Maio’s icy shower decree took everyone by surprise. And the immediate effect, with airlines also caught off guard, sparked anger and frustration among the hundreds of departing expats.

Goodbye to Christmas with the family

Return to Italy forbidden, goodbye Christmas family, thousands of euros, including airline tickets and tampons, in smoke. The Italian consulate and the embassy in London were filled with hundreds of calls. “We stayed on the phone until midnight to take calls,” explains Consul Marco Villani, the morning after a disastrous Sunday. But there was little to do: the decision, unilateral and immediate, leaves no alternative. For those who have not yet landed in Italy, there will be no alternative but to have to spend the holidays in the UK. Unfortunately, Italians who were already looking forward to going home, at the end of a nightmare year, had to return, where the flight blockage created a funnel effect because Sunday December 20 was also the last day to be able to return to Italy without having to isolate yourself on arrival. And that’s why British airports were full of last minute “emigrants”.

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Anger on social media

The frustration that erupted on social media is not so much directed at flight cancellations per se, an unexpected daily occurrence in the Covid era, but at a lack of warning. Until now, a constant in Britain about the pandemic has been to announce any measures always in advance to allow people to organize. But this time the measure came from Italy, and immediately operational: whoever was at the airport about to board, could not avoid resorting to the infamous airline “vouchers”. And pick up the hyssop blow as well: the new decree of the Conte government has imposed on Italians from the United Kingdom the obligation to swab carried out no more than 48 hours before. For a family of 4, who were denied boarding while already on the plane yesterday, a bitter Christmas present worth 600-700 pounds – money spent for nothing.

“Italy at least could have allowed those who were already at the airport to leave” is the protest that the compatriots sang in chorus. If it is more because of Italy or the United Kingdom it is the perfect question to commit on Christmas Day 2020.Beffa jokes, there are those who on the same Sunday of chaos managed to return to Italy from the United Kingdom, in fact almost without realizing it of the tile. Christmas.

Ryanair’s luck

The blockade, effective immediately, was announced in the afternoon: again on Sunday morning from Stansted, many Ryanair flights departed for Italy. By chance, most of the low-cost airline connections from the mega hub in Cambridgshire are all early in the day. For the lucky ones on the watch, however, another trap is triggered: after having gone crazy to make a swab in the UK, where public health only makes them to those with severe symptoms, everyone else has to pay by going. to private clinics, they will have to. now make another in Italy. But it is a marginal annoyance compared to the long-awaited homecoming, while a heavy fog for Italians wanting to go to the UK. The decree speaks of “interdiction of airspace” and seems to understand that it is in both directions.