Flights: at least 18 flights affected by bomb threats, 6 of which involve Italia

One after another, the various transport ministries have stated that “the necessary inspections were carried out upon landing in accordance with the applicable procedures and no problems were found: airport operations have returned to normal”.

Five flights are to Italia. These are: a Finnair flight from Helsinki, bound for and having landed as scheduled at Fiumicino airport at around 9.30 am, escorted by Italian Air Force jets and subsequently cleared by police bomb disposal experts; an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Fiumicino: in this case, the captain chose to land at Evreux Airport in France for the necessary checks; an Airbus A321 operated by Wizz Air, which took off at 7.00 am from Malpensa Silvio Berlusconi Airport bound for Warsaw and was subsequently diverted to Vienna “following a bomb threat received during the flight”, the airline stated.

In addition to the three flights mentioned in the initial list, there were three further bomb threats involving flights bound for Milan Malpensa, which were not diverted and landed as scheduled at the Milan airport: these were Aegean Airlines flight A3552, which departed from Thessaloniki and landed at 9.33, and Ryanair flight FR8953, which took off from Porto and arrived at 10.22; Wizz Air flight WMT3064, which departed from Milan Malpensa and was bound for Bucharest: Sky News reports this, citing Romanian intelligence, adding that the flight ‘landed safely’ in the Romanian capital.

Alarm triggered by an email in Italian

According to investigative sources, the bomb threat concerning the Helsinki–Rome and Dublin–Rome flights was triggered by a single anonymous email.

The email, written in Italian, arrived in the early hours of the morning at the email addresses of ADR and other companies at Rome’s airport. The subject line read ‘threat alert’.

In recent days, emails in Italian had also claimed that there were bombs on two Ryanair flights arriving in the capital.

“You are all complicit in a criminal conspiracy. We intend to annihilate you for this. Precisely for this reason, at this very moment, explosive devices have been planted on the following flights: AY1761, Helsinki – Italia; EL402, Dublin – Italia. They are heading for your airport. We, the fighters of the Male State, will make our mark on history with our actions today. Your feminist regime will remember this forever. The explosion will take place in 60 minutes. Today, your skies will be red.”

This is the content of the email signed by “Combattenti dello Stato Maschile” with the subject line “report of a threat”, sent this morning to a number of companies linked to Fiumicino Airport regarding two flights, one from Helsinki and the other from Dublin, bound for Rome.

The first reports concerning the emails received by Italian airports, which claimed there were explosive devices on board Italian flights, are currently being forwarded to the relevant public prosecutors’ offices. Once the files have been received, investigation files will be opened. Detectives from the Polaria unit and the Postal Police are working on the case. At present, the possibility of a link with the emails sent in recent days – which claimed there were bombs on other flights and inside around 280 schools – cannot be ruled out.

It is thought that there may be coordination at European level behind the false bomb threats on several scheduled flights that have occurred in recent days. For this reason, international cooperation channels have been activated to identify the servers through which the emails announcing bombs on board scheduled flights passed, and the IP addresses, in order to trace those responsible. According to the information gathered so far, the emails appear to have originated from compromised accounts or from email services that offer anonymised services, such as ProtonMail.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen this level of coordination before.” Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith made this comment to the Financial Times, referring to the spate of bomb threats on numerous flights across Europe in recent days. Smith clarified that the group has not, so far, been targeted by these threats. These incidents should not give passengers “any reason to delay or cut back on their travel plans”. “We are quite confident that we have everything we need to ensure minimal or no impact on our operations,” he added, assuring that the group “always maintains the highest level of vigilance”.

The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini, as reported by the MIT (Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport), is in contact with ENAC to monitor flights landing on Italian soil, and with ENAV to manage air traffic flying over Italy without stopping in the country.

The European Commission has also issued a statement: “Any threat against civilians is unacceptable. Ensuring the safety and security of citizens remains a priority. We are closely monitoring the situation and are in contact with the Member States concerned and the European Aviation Safety Agency,” wrote Apostolos Tzitzikostas, European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, on social media.

“It is still too early to draw any conclusions about a possible link between the reported incidents. National investigations are still ongoing,” he said.

The bomb threats affecting four flights bound for Prague also involved Václav Havel Airport in the Czech capital. This was announced by the Minister of the Interior, Lubomir Metnar, in a post on X, in which he stated that he was in contact with foreign partners.

“Prague Airport received an anonymous threat regarding the presence of an explosive device on board four aircraft bound for the capital and also on the airport premises ”, explained Metnar. The police subsequently confirmed that the bomb-disposal team’s searches had concluded without any explosives being found and that the extraordinary security measures had been lifted.

“The case is the subject of a thorough investigation by the Czech Republic’s police, including the National Centre against Terrorism, Extremism and Cybercrime (Nctekk), and we are also in contact with foreign partners,” the minister emphasised.

On 3 November 2026, there were seven reported bomb threats on passenger flights in Europe, all of which turned out to be hoaxes. According to reports in *The Guardian*, the incidents involved flights bound for Italia, Bulgaria, Spain and Poland, triggering security checks and, in some cases, route diversions and temporary disruptions to airport operations.

Four alerts had concerned Ryanair flights from Lisbon and Dublin: two bound for Rome Fiumicino and two for Sofia in Bulgaria. In Italia, the aircraft arriving from Dublin was escorted by two Italian Air Force fighter jets.

Another flight operated by the airline LOT , arriving from London Heathrow , had been forced to divert to Warsaw Modlin Airport. The flight had been bound for the city’s other airport, Chopin.

In Spain, a Ryanair flight that had departed from Manchester and was bound for Murcia.

Another of the scheduled flights in Europe affected by bomb threats – which later turned out to be hoaxes – was a Wizz Air flight that took off from Bergamo and landed in Sofia.

On 2 November, another Wizz Air flight, which had taken off from London Luton, was forced to make an emergency landing in Budapest following a bomb threat received during the flight. The aircraft, bound for Sofia in Bulgaria, was escorted by a Hungarian fighter jet before making an emergency landing at Budapest-Liszt Ferenc International Airport.