The Italian Airport Experience: A User’s Guide

I recently dropped my wife off at Milan’s Linate Airport for her flight home. Accompanying her inside to the check-in line, I was reminded of the many experiences I’ve had at Italian airports over the last year or so: Venice, Bologna, Florence, Treviso, Naples. All of them were eerily similar…and uniquely vexing. Curious, I did some research and discovered the following explanation, of uncertain origin, which finally helped me understand why Italian airports work the way they do. I hope you find this as enlightening as I did.

Welcome to the Italian Airport System! We are very pleased that you have chosen to patronize one of our many fine ports of entry. Here are a few pointers to help you make the most of your Italian Airport Experience.

Are you departing from an Italian Airport, and wondering how far ahead you need to arrive? Good news: Thanks to our egalitarian and efficient check-in system, it matters not one bit whether you arrive three hours before your flight, or thirty minutes. At the check-in line, we call up anyone departing on a flight sooner than yours to jump to the front of the line, regardless of how many other passengers have already been waiting, or for how long. This is our patented “Last Arrivals Go First” Protocol™.

Here at the Italian Airport System, we believe spontaneity should be rewarded! And we also place a premium on the importance of sleep; those who rise early to have “plenty of time at the airport” richly earn the frustration provided by our “Last Arrivals Go First” Protocol™. We also believe our Protocol is theologically sound: As is written in the Gospel according to Matthew, “The last [to arrive at the airport] shall be first [to get to their plane], and first last.”

The result: Go ahead and arrive several hours early, if you like. This will provide you with ample opportunity to stand still, observing a sea of humanity pass you by while contemplating the life choices that have brought you to this moment. To enhance this sensation, we have introduced our 10 Minute Guarantee™: At this phase in the Protocol, each passenger in line ahead of you will be processed in no fewer than 10 minutes.

To complete our Italian Airport Check-In Experience, we’ve pinpointed the precise moment at which the typical passenger descends into panic with the realization that there’s just no way they can make their flight. And then…we wait just a few minutes more. And then, our highly trained check-in agents click into action, suddenly becoming highly efficient professionals possessing a heretofore unobserved competence. With stunning speed, that 100-person line clears out — and each and every one of them hustles to the security line, to do it all over again.

On the topic of the security line, we have a very exciting announcement: After many years of fruitful negotiation with the governmental body responsible for security, they have agreed to implement the same “Last Arrivals Go First” Protocol™ that we use for the check-in line. That’s right: Rather than taking passengers in the order they arrive, those who are cutting it the closest will always skip right to the front.

The Italian Airport Experience hallmarks of spontaneity and surprises continue through the entire security check. First, our security agents will bark confusing orders about what you do, and don’t, need to remove from your bag. If you ask follow-up questions to seek clarity — for example, whether your Kindle or your big camera needs to come out of your carry-on — we strive to offer precisely the wrong answer. In this way, we guarantee that you will be treated to the complete Italian Security Check Experience of having all of your luggage pawed through and manhandled during a riveting secondary screening. Are you carrying sensitive electronic equipment, such as a fragile extra lens for your big camera? For your entertainment, we’ll toss it around in a display of frenetic juggling as we send it through the scanner again, and again, and again.

The Italian Airport System is proud to have some of the world’s most marvelous lounges. You’ll have to take our word for it, though, because our patented, double-stage “Last Arrivals Go First” Protocol™ guarantees that you’ll never have a single instant to spare, once you’ve cleared security. With this in mind, we have designed the entrances of our lounges to be some of the most beautiful and enticing on earth. That way, you’ll really know what you’re missing out on as you run past, shaking your head in disappointment.

The other thing you’ll rush past in an Italian Airport: shops selling outlandishly high-end items, from the most ostentatious jewelry to the finest perfumes to the most exclusive watches to cutting-edge fashions from the streets of Milan and Rome. Who would go shopping for such items at an airport?! is what you’ll be asking yourself as you run, soaked in flop-sweat, to your closing gate. It’s those little mysteries that bring life meaning, don’t you think?

As you can tell, one wonderful feature of the Italian Airport Experience is all the exercise it provides: standing, running, standing again, more running, more standing, hyperventilating, and so on. In order to enhance your cardiovascular stimulation, we endeavor to maintain our airport temperature just a little too hot, and the humid air just a little too sticky and stale. And, in the extremely rare event that you have a moment to sit down, we’ve ensured that the number of viable seats in any area of the airport is kept to an absolute minimum — extending to you the opportunity for yet more healthy standing around before boarding your flight.

Speaking of shopping: If you did some in Italy and need to process your Customs documentation to be eligible for a VAT refund, you may assume that we have implemented our “Last Arrivals Go First” Protocol™ there as well. Not so! Instead, we have engineered a special and unique-in-the-world system for our Customs verification process, which we have branded as The Immovable Line™. No matter how many people are standing in the line, or for how long, our agent has been trained to ruffle papers, stare at a computer, and make mysterious phone calls while somehow managing not to process one single customer. (Of course, the line does eventually move…in so far as, sooner or later, everyone gives up, throws their hands in the air, and retreats to the check-in line — where they are immediately treated to our original “Late Arrivals Go First” Protocol™.) It is through our Immovable Line Protocol™ that we ensure as much revenue as possible remains in Italy’s coffers.

That’s just a small flavor of the experience you are in store for, if you are departing from an Italian Airport. But what if you’re arriving here? Sadly, there’s only so much we can do to provide as miserable — excuse me, I meant to say “memorable” — an experience as we do for departing passengers. (We are particularly disappointed to observe the high numbers of passengers who carry their bags on the plane, allowing them to head directly to the exit.) But we still do our utmost to inject your arrival with a few hallmarks of the Italian Airport Experience.

One of our great regrets at the Italian Airports System is that, although we strive to meet our goal of misplacing 100 percent of passenger bags, ultimately we must rely on the assistance of our partner Airport Systems. And so we are happy to announce that in 2022, airports across Europe have ramped up their efforts to ensure that as few bags as possible make it on to the correct airplane. We’d like to single out our Dutch colleagues at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, who have achieved an exemplary and many-thought-impossible degree of mastery in the art of luggage loss.

Despite our best efforts, not every bag is lost in transit. But those that do arrive with your flight will appear at the luggage carousel as long after your landing time as possible. This provides ample time for arriving passengers to fully appreciate the Italian Airport Experience: the utter lack of seating…the unflinching, unfeeling, bureaucratic staff…the bewildering signage…the hot, moist air…the absurdly expensive shopping opportunities. We have ensured that any ATMs available in our baggage claim area (and, in some cases, on the entire premises of the airport) are not operated by banks, but by exchange bureaus that probe the human extremes of disadvantageous exchange rates. Passenger surveys indicate these aspects of the Italian Airport Experience are even more acute at the end of a seven-to-ten-hour, transatlantic flight.

If your bag is successfully lost by a partner Airport System, and fails to make it to our luggage carousels, first we ask you to wait approximately 30 to 60 minutes after the carousel stops spinning to ensure it doesn’t somehow magically appear. At this point, we will allow you to fill out the required paperwork to track your misplaced bag.

You might assume that we will deliver the bag to your hotel when it arrives. Think again! We are very pleased to have implemented our “No Bag, No Problem” Policy™: If you ever want to see your bag again, you’ll just have to wait around the airport until the next flight arrives from that destination — or make a special trip back to the airport later to claim your bag in person, if and when it ever appears. For you see, we know how special our Italian Airport Experience is for all of our passengers. And this increases the likelihood of an encore experience.

It is our hope that this helps clarify the many trademark features of the Italian Airport Experience. Remember our motto: Come early…come late…it doesn’t matter! Don’t ask why. Just accept it. You’ll suffer all the same either way.