“We will monitor developments in this matter with the utmost attention and will take all necessary initiatives to protect the workers involved”: this is how the regional secretariats of Filt Cgil, Fit Cisl, Uiltrasporti and Ugl Trasporto aereo reacted to the announcement that Amazon’s cargo handling activities will move from Malpensa to Brescia Montichiari from 8 September 2026. After Flai requested an urgent meeting, Cub Trasporti also took action: the union has already sent the Varese prefecture notification of the opening of the first phase of the cooling-off procedure, the first formal step towards calling a strike.
Amazon Prime Air will therefore transfer its cargo handling operations from Malpensa airport to Brescia Montichiari. The change also concerns the ground handling service provider: the current handler, Mle, part of the Bcube group, will hand over the service to Gda Handling, an operator already active at the Brescia airport. Mle’s final day of operations at Malpensa is scheduled for 7 September 2026, with the transfer of activities to Gda Handling the following day. Amazon’s decision is said to be driven by an economic offer significantly lower than the contractual terms currently in place with Mle-Bcube. The formal mechanism for the transfer is the social clause provided for under the Ccnl Trasporto aereo (national collective agreement for air transport): Mle has sent a notice to Gda Handling, Enac, Sea, Amazon itself and the trade unions, entitled “activation of the Social Clause protocol for the transfer of Amazon carrier activities”. In theory, the clause requires the incoming company to give priority to absorbing workers already employed by the outgoing operator: around 200 Bcube-Mle employees are involved.
Before launching industrial action, the confederations nevertheless believe it is necessary to understand precisely the scale of the transfer and its impact on the workers involved: “For this reason we will urgently request a meeting with the companies concerned, in order to obtain all the necessary information and verify the application of the procedures provided for under the social clause of the Ccnl Trasporto aereo,” they wrote in a statement. The unions also stressed that “the scale of the contract involved suggests significant employment and organisational repercussions for the staff of the company that currently provides the service at Malpensa”, and described the case as one in which “exclusively commercial choices and logic risk bringing about profound changes in people’s lives, without all the social and employment consequences appearing to have been adequately assessed”.
Andrea Orlando of Flai opened the dispute by telling Malpensa24 that the change of contractor “generates hundreds of redundancies” and “removes forms of protection”. The union representative highlighted the risk of a precedent that could be applied to other carriers in future, and noted that several fixed-term contracts would not be renewed as a result of the operation. Giovanni De Lucia, a Filt Lombardia official, told Corriere della Sera that the union would monitor the type of contracts applied to new hires at the Brescia airport. At Malpensa, he said, concern centres on the possible reduction in staffing levels and the need for any transfers to “be handled in the right way”. Filt also complains that it was not involved in the decision.
Amazon Italia, contacted by Corriere della Sera, replied that cargo handling activities “are managed by independent third-party providers, responsible for managing their own personnel”, adding that it expects “all protections provided for under the applicable national collective agreement to be fully respected during this transition”. This is the first, and so far only, public statement by the company on the matter.
Every week, 38 Amazon cargo flights land at Malpensa, for a total of 13,870 annual movements that will move to Montichiari from 8 September. For Brescia’s Gabriele D’Annunzio airport, the forecast is for around 14,000 new annual flights, as part of an effort to relaunch cargo traffic at the airport. Among the reasons cited for the decision is Montichiari’s central geographic position in relation to northern Italy and the mobility infrastructure network.
Amazon Air has operated at Malpensa since 2017 and, in March 2024, Malpensa was the most connected European airport in the Amazon Air network, according to a study by the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University, although the carrier accounts for only 2.5% of the total freight handled at Malpensa cargo. The choice of Brescia Montichiari is not new, as rumours have been circulating since 2024 about a possible Amazon interest in developing a logistics hub near Montichiari airport itself, through the company Techbau. At the Brescia airport, Amazon will also be able to work closely with Poste Italiane and Poste Air Cargo, which has had a stable presence there for years.
Antonio Illariuzzi
