We interrupt this vacation to bring you a work stoppage

It could have happened to any of us, even the most seasoned travelers.

When MaryAnn and Jeff Welton left their bed-and-breakfast in Sorrento, Italy, the morning of April 29, heading for the Rome airport to catch a flight to London, they had no idea their European vacation would finish in a grueling two-day ordeal of trains, planes and automobiles.

After taking three trains to the airport, the Irvine couple were stunned to learn their Alitalia flight was grounded. And hundreds of other flights too. Alitalia workers had walked off the job to demand that the government bail out the ailing airline.

“We were just completely clueless that this was going on,” MaryAnn said. There was no TV at the couple’s B&B;, and no one had told them about the walkout.

Maybe no one thought it was important enough to mention.

Labor strikes in Europe, unlike in the United States, occur almost daily. They are as ubiquitous as street cafes on Paris’ Left Bank and cats at Rome’s Colosseum. Spring and summer are peak seasons for such protests, involving aviation and transit workers, hotel and hospital employees, museum staff and even border guards. Any one of them can wreak havoc with a trip.

The good news: Walkouts are usually announced, experts say. Most are local and brief, lasting one or two days.

You can get a head’s up on them if you know where to look. And if you don’t, there are often ways to overcome such obstacles.

The Weltons coped with pluck and creativity. But it wasn’t easy.

They booked a hotel room near the airport for the night, then languished in line at the ticket counter the next morning with up to 1,000 other stranded travelers. They tried and failed to get on three planes to London on standby and finally settled for a late-evening British Airways flight to Manchester, England.

In the ticket lines, “it got ugly,” MaryAnn said. She witnessed a fistfight and a tantrum.

In Manchester, the couple rented a car with three strangers they met on their odyssey -- two American men and an Australian woman -- and drove three hours in the dead of night to London, where they caught their flight home.

“We still love Italy,” MaryAnn concluded, “but I think we’ve got it out of our system for a while.”

On the Continent, labor strife is “part of the fabric of society,” said Ruth Milkman, who directs the Institute of Industrial Relations at UCLA. “Unionism is very robust in Europe compared to the United States.”

How robust? Exact comparisons are difficult because each country has its own rules for reporting work stoppages to the U.N.’s International Labour Organization. In 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the United States reported 19 strikes and lockouts, Italy 616, Spain 688 and Britain 146.

Many airlines in Europe, as they do here, may try to accommodate you on another carrier during a strike. Alitalia offered to endorse the Weltons’ British Airways tickets. Rail companies may provide bus alternatives.

“But if it’s something massive, you may have to take the initiative,” said Bruce McIndoe, chief executive of IJet, a company in Annapolis, Md., that assesses risks for business and leisure travelers. You can start before you depart:

* Consider going to Europe in August, when strikes are less common because so many workers are on vacation, said Maria Cohrs, European regional manager for IJet. A downside: Many locals desert the cities then, replaced by swarms of tourists. Fall and winter are also good bets, although in Italy “they’ve been striking incessantly throughout the year,” she said.

* Use a travel agent. The Weltons didn’t; they bought their plane ticket on the Internet. That can work fine for domestic travelers and veteran globe-trotters. But trips abroad may get complicated. When things go wrong, a good agent can bail you out with speedy hotel and flight bookings. The best backup is an agent with a 24-hour contact number, McIndoe said.

* Check credit-card policies. Some provide phones for travel assistance in emergencies.

* Buy travel insurance. Trip-interruption policies may cover expenses if you’re delayed by a labor strike, plus offer emergency advice by phone. If you have a chronic health problem, consider medical evacuation coverage. Most regular health insurance policies won’t cover travel costs if you need to leave the country to get treatment.

* Devise a Plan B. Trains, assuming their workers aren’t out too, can be good choices during airline or traffic-controller strikes. In Europe they run frequently. Tour operator Rick Steves, at www.ricksteves.com/rail/itinplan.htm, provides a useful primer on riding the rails.

Consider local discount airlines, such as EasyJet, www.easyjet.com, and Ryanair, www.ryanair.ie, for intra-Europe travel in a pinch. Ask about ferries; in Greece, for instance, they’ll get you there economically although more slowly than planes. It’s wise to carry contact phones and website addresses for transit alternatives.

* Stay informed. Many of us go on vacation to get unplugged. But to avoid unhappy surprises, check in with the world before heading to the airport or train station. Consult your hotel staff. Monitor newspapers, newscasts or www.cnn.com.

Subscribe to a travel-alerts service. The Overseas Security Advisory Council, established by the U.S. State Department, issues a daily online newsletter; register for free at www.ds-osac.org.

For $25 per trip, you can subscribe to IJet’s Worldcue Traveler, which sends daily updates tailored to your itinerary by e-mail or wireless device; visit www.ijet.com for details. Through May 14, IJet had issued 93 alerts this year on transportation disruptions caused by strikes or other protests in Europe.

One alert, issued April 28, warned of the Alitalia walkout that stranded the Weltons and so many others the next day.

*

Jane Engle welcomes comments but can’t respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.