What to Pack When Your Flight Might Be Hit by a Strike

Yes, and it's spread wider than it looked a few days ago: SATA ground-handling staff in the Azores struck November 1–3, French rail unions are striking November 5, Spain has a nationwide general strike called for November 11, and Italy has a cluster of strikes from November 20–22. None of these notices name specific cancelled flights, so nothing is guaranteed to go wrong — France's action is a rail strike with no confirmed flight impact yet, and Spain's general strike is expected to hit ground handling and baggage rather than close airports. But after a September air traffic control strike that disrupted 23 airports and a string of national strikes across France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain through October, the pattern is clear enough that it's worth packing a little differently before your next trip. This is a practical checklist for what to pack, and what to keep trackable, when a strike, delay or rebooking is a real possibility — not a guarantee of chaos, just reasonable preparation. Updated November 4, 2026 to add the France and Spain strike notices and the latest on Italy's shifting November 20–22 calendar.

Quick answer

• Confirmed or called strikes now span four countries in November: SATA Handling ground staff in the Azores (Nov 1–3), French rail unions (Nov 5), a Spanish general strike (Nov 11), and a cluster of Italian strikes (Nov 20–22) covering a general strike, rail action, and — status still shifting — air traffic control.
• None of these notices confirm cancelled flights — strike notices are filed in advance by law in most EU countries, but airlines often run a reduced, not cancelled, schedule around them, and some of these (notably France's and Spain's) are rail or ground-handling actions rather than direct airspace strikes.
• The real risk isn't the strike itself, it's the rebooking chaos after it — a changed gate, a missed connection, or a bag that gets separated from you during a last-minute itinerary change. That's the part a Find My-tracked lock, card or passport holder actually helps with.

What's actually confirmed for November

Strike notices in the EU are typically filed with a national authority days or weeks ahead, which is why it's possible to know about some of November's disruption before it happens. Here's what's registered so far, updated November 4:

Where	Who	When	Status
Azores, Portugal (incl. Ponta Delgada)	SATA Handling ground workers	Nov 1, 2 & 3, 4–7pm local	Confirmed in SATA's own contingency plan
France, nationwide rail	SNCF's four main rail unions (CGT-Cheminots, UNSA-Ferroviaire, SUD-Rail, CFDT-Cheminots)	Nov 5	Rail strike called; SNCF's own service plan was due the evening of Nov 4. No confirmed flight impact — this is a rail, not aviation, action
Spain, nationwide	CCOO and UGT unions — general strike touching Renfe trains, metros, buses and ground handling	Nov 11, all day	Called; no minimum-services decision published for aviation as of late October. A general strike doesn't mean airports close — ground handling and baggage are the real exposure
Italy, nationwide	CGIL general strike (public and private sectors) plus a separate rail strike	Nov 20	The one date Italian authorities describe as fully confirmed
Italy, nationwide airspace	ENAV air traffic controllers	Nov 21, 1–5pm local	Originally a registered strike notice; more recent reporting lists this date as in doubt. Treat as unconfirmed until closer to the date
Milan Malpensa & Venice Marco Polo, Italy	ENAV air traffic controllers (Malpensa) and airport security staff (Venice)	Nov 22, full 24 hours at both	Registered local notices — Malpensa flights and Venice security queues both affected

This adds to a pattern rather than starting one. Late September's air traffic control action disrupted 23 European airports, and since then separate national strikes have hit France, a Brussels Airlines ground-handler strike, and wider disruption covered in our roundup of Europe's October strike wave — now followed by this new wave touching France, Spain and Italy again in November. None of this means your specific flight will be affected — most scheduled flights around a strike notice still operate, often on a reduced timetable, and Italy's calendar in particular has already changed more than once — but it's enough of a recurring pattern that "pack as if a delay might happen" is a reasonable default for European travel this winter, not an overreaction.

What your rights actually are, in brief

Whether you're entitled to compensation (not just rebooking) depends on whose strike it is. A strike by an airline's own staff or its contracted ground handlers is generally treated differently under EU261/UK261 than a strike by air traffic controllers or airport staff outside the airline's control, which usually counts as an "extraordinary circumstance" exempting the airline from compensation, though it still owes you rebooking or a refund, plus care while you wait. We've covered this distinction in detail for the Brussels ground-handler case and the French strike wave — read why a ground-handler strike is treated differently and what EU261/UK261 actually guarantee if a specific claim is what you're after. This article is about what to pack, not the legal fine print.

The pack-and-track checklist for a trip that might get disrupted

None of this is about preventing a strike — nothing does that. It's about making sure that if your trip gets rearranged at short notice, the things that matter most stay easy to find.

Before you leave home

Screenshot your booking reference, hotel confirmation and any rebooking phone numbers before you go — airport Wi-Fi during a disruption is unreliable at exactly the moment you need it most. Pair anything you're packing with Find My a day or two in advance, not at the gate, so it's already showing a location in the app before you need it to.

In your carry-on: passport and cards

A rebooking queue or an unplanned overnight stop is exactly when a passport gets handed across a desk, tucked into a jacket pocket, or set down on a counter while you deal with a phone call. A Smart Passport Holder keeps your passport, boarding pass, a few cards and some cash together and trackable through Find My, so it's one less thing to mentally account for while you're also tracking flight updates. A Smart Tracking Card does the same job for a day bag or laptop sleeve — thin enough that it isn't adding bulk you'll resent carrying.

On your checked bag

A ground-handling strike specifically is a baggage-handling disruption, not just a flight-schedule one — bags can sit longer on a belt, get transferred by a different handler than usual, or occasionally go out on a later flight than the passenger. A Smart Lock keeps the bag closed with a TSA-approved combination lock inspectors can open without cutting, while still reporting its last known location through Find My if it doesn't arrive when you do. It's not a guarantee your bag won't get delayed — nothing is — but it means you're not relying solely on an airline's own tracking desk to tell you where it last was.

If your bag gets separated during a disrupted rebooking

Most major European and international carriers now support Apple's Find My Share Item Location feature, which lets you share your tagged bag's location directly with the airline's baggage team rather than describing a suitcase over the phone — we cover exactly how that works, and which airlines support it, in our guide to airlines using Find My for luggage recovery. It's genuinely useful during a rebooking, since a bag is more likely to get rerouted through an unfamiliar airport when your itinerary changes last-minute. It still depends on another Apple device passing near the bag to relay its location, so a bag sitting in a back room with no foot traffic nearby won't update instantly — it's a real help, not a live GPS feed.

A tracked kit vs. a loose AirTag vs. nothing

For luggage specifically, there are really three options, and they're not equally matched on the thing that matters during a strike: knowing your bag is secured and locatable without having to think about it.

	No tracker	A standalone AirTag in the bag	Seekerity Travel Essentials Kit
Bag secured with a lock	Only if you pack one separately	Only if you pack one separately	Yes — Smart Lock included
Last known location via Find My	No	Yes	Yes, on both the lock and the card
TSA-recognized for inspection	N/A	N/A	Yes
Second trackable item for a day bag or passport pouch	No	Only if you buy a second AirTag	Yes — Smart Tracking Card included
Setup	None needed	A few minutes	A few minutes, both items at once

A loose AirTag is a perfectly reasonable choice if locating the bag is all you need — it's not a worse product, just a narrower one. Where the kit earns its place is specifically the strike-and-rebooking scenario: a locked bag is harder to tamper with during an unfamiliar handler transfer, and having a second, independent tracked item for your passport or day bag means a disrupted itinerary doesn't leave you with only one thing you can actually locate.

Frequently asked questions