Rumble: Italian soccer and flight delays

Yesterday evening, I was flying out of Brindisi, South Italy. After passing airport security, I found a group of people clustered around the window of the airport police's office. I thought something was wrong, and had a look..

Inside the office, the police officers were watching the Italy-Romania soccer match, and a small crowd was following the match through the window, shouting and commenting as if they were in a pub.
At the other end of the departure hall, two other guys had hooked up their laptops to watch the game via internet, drawing a small crowd around them too. I could even hear the luggage handlers next to the departure lounge cheering and shouting as the match went along.

Nobody seemed to mind the plane was late. Not even as the plane handlers were getting out of their office, at the last minute to prepare the flight for take-off. Every passenger understood that in Italy, they had their priorities straight: soccer first, plane later..

Eventually we took off, and when landing in Rome, the passengers did get annoyed though: the car bringing in the chocks to block the aircraft's wheels, was late, so neither the stairs nor the luggage handling equipment could be connected to the plane. Even after the chocks eventually arrived, all plane handlers took their time to engage into a lively discussion about the match, before they opened the plane.

Or would the passengers have been annoyed that in the mean time, the match ended in a 1-1 draw?


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