Strikes are a regular occurrence in Europe, as employees withhold their labour to fight for better pay and conditions.

Walkouts are sometimes planned months ahead but others are announced last minute, showing that it always pays to check before you travel.

Luckily, we have gathered all of the strike information together below.

Read on to find out where and when are walkouts taking place.

If your flight or train is cancelled or delayed, you will be entitled to a new ticket or compensation. Read our guide for the full details.

Italy: Nationwide train, tram and plane strikes

Airline, rail and public transport services are expected to be disrupted across Italy due to a planned 24-hour general strike on 13 December.

Ferry services to Sicily and Sardinia and motorway toll booth services may also be affected by delays and cancellations.

The strike, organised by the union USB (Unione Sindacale di Base), is in protest against the government’s economic policies, which union leaders say ‘increase social inequalities’ and ‘discourage deindustrialisation.’

Italy’s major airports will also be impacted by a 24-hour strike of TechnoSky air navigation service staff and a shorter strike by air traffic controllers on 15 December.

These protests are backed by several of Italy’s leading transport unions.

Commuters in Italy’s cities can also expect delays and cancellations due to a four-hour national public transport strike on 10 January, which the FAISA-CONFAIL union has called.

While affected services will vary between cities, a walkout by public transport operators is likely to impact buses, trams, commuter trains, water buses and ferries, and underground metro lines. Long-distance rail service and taxis are not expected to be affected.

Similarly, train services in Florence’s metropolitan areas will be affected by delays and cancellations, and long-distance rail services could also be disrupted on 12 January.

This is due to a walkout by staff at the railway network manager Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI).

Commuters in Florence may also be affected by tram delays and cancellations on 25 January because of a 24-hour protest by staff at Gest, which operates the trams.

The advice to passengers is to check your transport will be running as scheduled before leaving home.

France: Trains and ports could be disrupted over Christmas

Several planned strikes will affect train travellers from 11 December onwards. The end date has not been fixed, so it’s likely to go on until Christmas.

Both high-speed TGV and international routes – as well as regional TER services – are likely to be impacted.

Railway workers from the country’s four major railway unions are protesting over the French state rail company SNCF’s increasing privatisation of regional railway routes.

While rail timetables are expected to show services affected by the action 48 hours in advance, it’s worth checking on the day you are planning to travel.

Read more about the travel strikes in France in December.

While expected to cause only minimum disruption to passenger services, ports will be impacted by dockworkers striking on 9 and 10 December.

This protest is being organised by the CGT (general confederation of labour) union, which is demanding better pay and retirement plans for workers and for several ports to address ongoing asbestos issues.

France: easyJet workers file indefinite strike notice

French staff at budget airline easyJet filed an indefinite strike notice in protest over the company’s plan to close its Toulouse hub. The strike first began in September and runs until 16 December.

Exact dates for walk outs are yet to be announced, but more strike action could hit easyJet operations across the country in the coming weeks.

Across Europe: Finnair flights affected

Finnair has cancelled 300 flights on 9 December and 13 December, which will affect around 33,000 air passengers due to a strike called by the Finnish Air Line Pilots Association. The airline warns that this may also impact flights on either side of these two strike days.

Spain: Nationwide bus strikes

A nationwide bus strike that began in late November is expected to continue in December, causing significant disruption to local and long-distance bus services.

This strike will especially impact regional services in Murcia and Andalusia. This strike has been organised by the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) union to demand better working conditions for drivers and the option to retire early without financial penalty.

This article will be updated as we receive more information.

If you know of a big strike happening in your country that we have missed, we’d love to hear from you via Twitter.

There has been growing discontent in European destinations around the proliferation of Airbnb properties and the disruption this brings to neighbourhoods.

Earlier this year, residents of cities including Rome, Florence and Milan sabotaged key lock boxes in protest against the rental property phenomenon and its tendency to drive up housing prices.

Now, the Italian government has brought in a ban on the self-check-in system citing “public order and safety risks”.

This means guests staying in rental accommodation in Italy, like Airbnb or Booking properties, must now be met in person on arrival by the owners.

Italy bans key boxes for holiday rental properties

The ban on key boxes and keypads was signed off on 18 November and was effective immediately.

However, police and local authorities have only just begun notifying rental platforms and property owners, according to Italian media.

The rule applies to all types of short-term tourist accommodation such as Airbnb and Booking rentals.

The measure was introduced to “prevent public order and safety risks in relation to the possible accommodation of dangerous individuals or those linked to criminal or terrorist organisations”, the Italian interior ministry said.

“The automated management of check-in and entry to a property without visual identification of guests” means there is a risk it “could be occupied by one or more individuals whose identities remain unknown to the relevant police authorities posing a potential danger to the community,” the statement added.

The ministry said the ban was introduced in response to the “intensification of the phenomenon of short-term rentals” resulting from “the numerous political, cultural and religious events scheduled in the country”, including the 2025 Jubilee celebrations in Rome.

What does the ban mean for travellers?

The new ruling means guests can no longer check in to properties independently, such as being provided with a key code to open a lock box.

Instead, rental owners or managers will need to meet guests in person to confirm identity documents and handle the check-in procedures.

Guests’ personal details and identity documents must be sent to police authorities by owners within 24 hours of check-in.

Roberto Gaultieri, the mayor of Rome, praised the ban as “good news for everyone” and welcomed the end of “the padlocks and boxes that disfigure our streets and prevent adequate security checks”.

He added that he intends to bring in “suitable intervention methods” to remove all these kinds of devices.

Singapore has retained its place at the top of a ranking of the world’s strongest passports, previously knocking Spain off the top spot.

But there’s a surprising new entry onto the podium that has taken second place as of December 2024.

Finland has soared up the rankings, rising from 13th place in 2023 and 7th place at the start of 2024, and has squeezed in just ahead of Spain.

VisaGuide.World’s ranking is seen as one of the most reliable within the travel industry, along with the Henley Passport Index.

The company evaluates 199 countries and territories globally and bases its results on factors including visa-free access, eVisas, and global mobility.

It then uses its own Destination Significance Score (DSS) to assign a unique value to each passport, although the DSS is not revealed in the ranking.

With this system, VisaGuide.World has found that the Singaporean passport is officially the strongest passport in the entire world – with a score of 91.27 out of a possible 100 as of December 2024.

Finland is in second place, with a score of 90.88 is closely followed by Spain, whose score is 90.87.

Next up are the Danish and Italian passports, which come in with scores of 90.63 and 90.58 respectively.

It’s good news for Europe overall, with only one other country not on the continent, Japan, in the top 20. Japan takes 8th place, up from 15th in September last year.

Malta, France, Austria and Hungary round out the top 10 ranking.

How does VisaGuide.World rank passports?

Released four times a year, VisaGuide.World’s passport ranking examines the number of destinations passport holders can access without a visa. Henley, usually thought of as the authority, takes a similar approach but has yet to release its ranking for this quarter.

VisaGuide.World takes other factors into consideration, creating its DSS for each travel destination.

That score factors in the type of entry policy each country enforces on an individual passport. That encompasses visa-free entry, Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), visa on arrival, e-Visas embassy approved visas, passport-free travel or banned entry.

This means the next ranking could look very different as Schengen countries introduce the Entry/Exit System (EES) and ETIAS visa waiver for some non-EU countries and the UK rolls out its ETA.

The DSS also assigns points for the country’s GDP, global power and tourism development.

Not all of its criteria are considered equal, though. Visa-free access to a country with a high DSS earns a passport more points in the index than entry to a country with a low score.

The fact that VisaGuide.World does not specify the DSS of each country means that other factors may also affect the outcome of the index.

Why has Finland risen in the passport ranking?

Finland managed to bump Spain from the second spot thanks to passport holders being able to travel passport-free to a higher number of destinations – 45 compared to 43.

All the European countries in the top 20 have a high number of passport-free travel destinations, unlike Singapore and Japan, thanks to the existence of the European Union and the Schengen zone.

For these citizens, travelling with just an ID card is possible, making freedom of movement simple.

Spanish passport holders have also seen a reduction in the places they can travel to visa-free, from 160 countries and territories to just 107.

It appears to be a drop across the board, though. Singaporean passport holders could previously visit 164 places without a visa but today, that only applies to 160.

While the ranking doesn’t explicitly say why this is the case, it is a regularly-changing figure due to shifting diplomatic ties, mutual visa policies, and the political and economic stability of countries and territories globally.