Rome–Fiumicino

So Herr Akache, now in control of Lufthansa Flight 181 and going by his alias of Mahmoud, orders Captain Schumann to head for Cyprus, but the pilot informs the militant leader that the 737 does not have enough fuel to make it that far.

He instead suggests a refuelling stop at Fiumicino Airport in Rome, and Mahmoud relents.

The aircraft diverts to the east while the hijackers solidify control over the passengers and crew.

Stewardess Gabby Dillman will later describe the opening moments of the crisis.

All of these factors meant that there was an increased risk of overshooting the runway if the crew had continued the approach.

A go-around would give them time to assess the situation, the captain said, and perhaps make an approach to somewhere with a longer runway, like Fiumicino Airport, which the captain knew was close by.

Above all, the captain said that the safety of the landing was in doubt at the moment of the bird strike, and that, quote, "...as we were taught at the time, in case of doubt, go around.

We were trained for that." A number of pieces of evidence point to what's known as the startle effect as being the cause of the captain's actions.

Picture this.

You're on the ground at Rome Fiumicino.

Engines running.

Clearance received.

Lisbon and Porto as well.

And then since I was talking about the airport transfers, some of the popular transfers from airport to city are Paris Charles de Gaulle to Paris, to the city, or for example, again, coming back to Italy, Rome Fiumicino to Rome.

So as you can see, Italy is everywhere.

I don't think this is gonna change.

We're not gonna do it kind of in between flights at night.

We're just gonna close the whole thing down, um, so tough luck." And best option I've found is get a bus from Napoli Centrale Railway Station direct to Rome Fiumicino Airport.

Takes about three hours, costs about 15 quid, and you'll then obviously be able to fly to your destination of choice.

Okay.

Thanks to Dave and Buster for joining us today.

A big thanks as well to Rory for joining us as he's gone through Rome Airport.

That was pretty decent of him.

We will be back on Wednesday after the Slovenia home game and we will be giving away a £20 ball bag voucher to someone at random who engages with us on our social media.

The Old Town is literally just a few miles away.

Yeah, you contrast that arrival experience with major European hubs like Peristral de Gaulle or Rome Fiumicino, where you face an expensive hour-long transit slog just to reach the city border.

Ugh, the worst.

Yeah.

So one of my childhood homes was in a neighborhood outside of Rome called Catalpa Rocco.

which was designed as part of, it was near the Fiumicino Airport, and part of it was for pilots and people working at the airport having somewhere nearby to live, and it's a really nice neighborhood.

But the dynamic for airports, even if you are talking about neutral, often the airport area outside the airport itself is thought of as, okay, parking, some land-side concession, and then kind of not very much outside of maybe ad hoc land, light industrial areas.

But actually, I think one thing which is really interesting is our practice area looks at all aspects of aviation, including areas around the airports.