Italian Airports Unofficially Boost Security Following UK Events

Text of report by Italian newspaper La Stampa website on 2 July

[Unnamed report: "Alarm in Italy: Checks at Airports"]

“Maximum” vigilance at Italian airports, too. Officially, “nothing has changed” in the security apparatus, which was set up immediately after the attack on the Twin Towers, but, de facto, yesterday checks were further increased. The security apparatus, which was set up in Italy after the attack on 11 September 2001, has been constantly perfected across the years with protocols following other episodes linked with terrorism, such as the events in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005. But security measures are constantly adapted, from city to city, on the basis of the various indications coming both from intelligence and police sources. In Linate and Malpensa [Milan airports], the checks, according to the Milan prefect, “are strict, as they always are.” And the flights from the Milan airports for Great Britain are believed to be taking place regularly. There have been some delays, especially in departures, but they reportedly are not to be attributed to the boost in security measures, but to technical problems: the biggest delay (three hours for a British Airways flight yesterday morning, from Linate to Heathrow) was apparently due to problems linked with the composition of the crew. At Rome’s “Leonardo Da Vinci” [more commonly known as "Fiumicino"] airport, the security checks have been made even stricter in “Island F,” the most sensitive area of the airport because that is where, since 2001, the so-called flights at risk – for the United States, Great Britain, and Israel – have been concentrated.

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