Seagull Flock Shuts Down Venice Airport

Photo: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe (Getty Images)

You haven’t been to Venice until you have been swarmed by seagulls. The birds are the ones who really control the historic Italian city, treating St. Mark’s Square like their private property. The local seagulls take what they want and go wherever they please, including Venice Marco Polo Airport. A huge flock of seagulls stopped all operations at the airport for almost an hour last week. The airport was forced to divert 20 flights, including one carrying the region’s president.

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A flock of 200 seagulls invaded the airspace around Marco Polo and set up shop at the end of a runway. According to CNN, flights attempted to depart were grounded between 9.54 a.m. and 10.45 a.m. as the situation was dealt with. SAVE, the airport’s management company, used acoustic deterrents to try and drive the birds away. However, the most effective method was the tried and true falcon. The airport’s resident falconer got the job done, and the airport was back to normal by 11:20 a.m.

The diverted flights were sent to four airports across northern Italy. The Guardian reported that a flight carrying Luca Zaia, Veneto’s president, circled the airport for 25 minutes before being sent to Trieste, nearly a two-hour drive from Venice.

If it weren’t for the potential plane crash, it might not be so bad to churn a couple dozen seagulls through a turbine to teach them a lesson. Bird strikes can also destroy airlines without even causing a crash. Low-cost carrier Ryanair wrote off a brand new Boeing 737 after it hit a flock of birds on approach to Rome-Fiumicino Airport in 2008. Earlier this year, a bird strike caused a fiery engine failure on an American Airlines Boeing 737 headed to Phoenix, Arizona.