Alitalia v. Air France v. Delta
 

Resurrecting this old thread, because we have the same three airline options for a trip to Italy for later in the year, but we'll be flying COACH. Skymiles told us they have availability on Alitalia through Milan or Rome, Air France through Paris, or Delta on the same routes.

I've flown coach to Europe on 3 different airlines - 1 foreign (Austrian) and 2 domestic (NW and USAirways) - all in coach. The Austrian Air experience was fantastic, and the FAs treated us like royalty. Service on the domestics was, unfortunately, dreadful. (Far different from my experiences on these airlines within the US.) And the FAs treated the passengers as though we were major inconveniences on their way to/from Europe.

But I've never flown Alitalia, AF, or Delta overseas, and I don't want to judge them based on experiences with other domestic/foreign service. Any recent experiences to share?

I have flown Air France within the past year from Chicago to Barcelona coach. Nothing good or bad. I generally find coach is coach. I usually just look at prices and times. Personally, I wouldn't fly Alitalia for the simple reason that going on strike is a favorite past time in Italy.

Coach service is very similar on all three airlines. I would see which airline offers individual entertainment monitors on their aircraft. Also, if you have to connect with all three airlines, choose the one with the shortest and most reasonable connection time.

The Delta and Air France flights will likely be on the same plane - one will be codesharing the other's aircraft. Phone to find out which airline it will be.

Thanks for the responses!

Delta and AF each offer the same routes, codesharing each other's flights, operating at slightly different times. Similar thing with Delta/Alitalia through Milan. So I get to choose which airline.

Through the airlines web sites and seatguru.com, I found info such as IFE, seat configuration, pitch and width. (Seat size basically the same; AF and Alitalia's new 777 have personal video monitors at every seat, while Delta does not.) But I'm still looking for comments about on-timeliness, cleanliness, meals, free drinks, crew friendliness, etc.

Check out the individual airline boards or the trip reports board at flyertalk.com.

Free drinks with Air France! but not with Delta.

So a person with a Delta ticket on AirFrance metal would be charged for drinks, while his seatmate with an AirFrance ticket would get free drinks. Now that would be a scene to see! LOL.

vedette,
You're kidding, right?

I think whats was meant was that on a code share be sure which airline is actually flying, if it's Air France then free drinks.

I have always had good flights on Air France often on their short stops in Asia and have always found them excellent and charming FA's in Coach/Economy.

If your on a Delta airplane, you pay for your drinks on International flights. If your on an Air France plane (even if it has a Delta Flight Number) your drinks are included.

From what I could determine, the biggest difference is that the Delta planes do not have seat back video monitors, whereas the Air France and Alitalia planes do. We're flying Delta to Paris and home from Rome via Alitalia (booked through Delta) just because I liked the times.

wliwl - It depends on the plane you're on. Delta's 10 777s have personal screen while their 767 (more common) don't.

I believe that most of the USA carriers overseas now charge for drinks and the international ones do not.

I have flown Alitalia twice. They would be at the very bottom of my list. We were in coach. Absolutely terrible service-both times. Why twice. The second was a code share that we were not aware of otherwise the count would have been ONCE.

Having just flown Air France from BOS to CDG I would highly recommend them. The planes were AirBus with back seat monitors. The seat configuration was 2 /4/2. Try to get the 2 if it is 2 of you flying. The food was good, better from CDG to BOS. We were served aperitifs, wine with meal and if you liked a brandy or cognac after. The FA's were very good. The flight was uneventful and arrived early on the return. I would chose AF over domestic airlines any time.

Thanks for all of the advice, everyone. Based on the responses here, comments in other threads, postings at flyertalk, and info at seatguru, all signs point to Air France. It seems that over the last few years, Alitalia has gone from being some people's favorite airline to their most hated, which is disappointing. (Since we're going to Italy, it would be neat to be on the Italian airline and have the Italy experience begin in the air. Then again, "visiting" France on the way to Italy isn't so bad, either!)