It's pretty generic, but I've heard some bad stories about Alitalia. Can anyone here share their thoughts?

Mmmmm,let me see,they are Italian.They go to and from Italy.

It depends what market you are in a lot of alitalia co share with Continental. same plane usally continental jets check both for price if its a co share you would be suprised at the fare for the same flight from the two companies. its a co share from newark (EWR) to Rome or Milan i never had a problem with Alitalia I am here posting this !

Alitalia no longer code shares with Continental, nor CO with AZ. Alitalia and Delta do code share, however.

Dear Mike,<BR>Sorry, but I hate them hate them hate them! Lousy service, surly flight attendants, tons of carry-on bags piled in front of the emergency exits through the entire flight (include take-off and landing) and the no-smoking flight I was on became a spontaneous smoking flight about 1/3 of the way through. That, admittedly, was two and a half years ago, but I'm not really willing to go back and try them again. One woman's lousy experience....

They are pretty lousy according to one guidebook. It says not to fly Alitalia unless you get a really great deal. Book is called Rome Guide I believe.

While we've never had a bad experience with Alitalia except in the old smoking days, a nice way to get to Italy is to go via London on BA and then to Italy on BA again. That's the way we usually do it.

HORRIBLE!!!!<BR><BR>Any other way to Italy even if it's via a barge would be better. Even free it sucks.

Hi.<BR><BR>People who have had bad experiences tend to be more vocal when the opportunity for belly-aching arrives, BUT our experience with Alitalia was awful coming and going. The idea of "no smoking " is a joke. On one of our flights, the N/S section was in the CENTER of the plane fouling the air for everyone. If ANYTHING goes wrong with respect to your itinerary, your seats, your fare, your meal, your luggage or your immortal soul, Alitalia will find a way to make it worse and you WILL get screwed!<BR><BR>The Italians are wonderful people but they suffer from the incurable curse of being...Italians.<BR><BR>Have I made myself clear?<BR><BR>You're welcome.

I flew Alitalia in late May, and while the service wasn't great, I had none of the problems others have mentioned. There was NO smoking and no luggage in the aisles. However, there was no edible food either. They served fish lasgna(!) both ways (JFK to Rome, Milan to JFK) and the nastiest wilted salad ever. The flight attendants were typically super-unionized Italians, putting in no effort what-so-ever and seeming very annoyed by everything. <BR>I think if you can get a direct flight than it is worth it to take Alitalia. You'll be sleeping, so who cares if the food is s*** and the attendants less than happy. I think they are a pretty standard airline with below average food.

I've not flown on Alitalia because of what I've read. About the "no smoking", a passenger had reported that the flight attendants were smoking also.

I tried to change my flight from Rome to Madrid on Alitalia to a later time.At first I thought they were joking so I called back but got the same answer.I had to fax all of our tickets to them (there are 4 of us)and they would let us know in 24 hours!I decide to wait til we get to Rome.Has any heard of this procedure?They wouldn't even tell me if there were seats available on a later flight!

I never got to fly Alitalia,we were due to fly to Milan/Florence/Rome in September 2001.

Thanks for the advice. Does anyone have the url for the Alitalia site and do they do transatlantic. Aaaahhh sit back, smoke, no kids on flight and don't have to listen to loud discussions about what to wear in Europe. Bliss

The posts about smoking on Alitalia reflect old information. Since January of last year, no smoking is allowed on any Alitalia flights, anywhere. As for bad service, rude flight attendants, this is due to the fact that Italian labor is unionized, and very militant. There is not much that can be done about this other than to completely privative the airline and let it sink or swim. Concerning timliness, it is true than flights are often very late, but it is also true that many flights arrive on time, nearly on time, and even early. Alitalia will be receiving state of the art 777-200s next year and introducing them on certain North American routes (certainly to JFK).

I flew on Alitalia last year from Paris to Rome and was pleasantly surprised! My friend and I got upgraded to business class without even asking. The guy that checked us in never even told us. So, you can imagine our surprise when we got on the plane.<BR><BR>I thought the workers and service was fine! I would definitely fly them again. Northwest.... well, that's another story..<BR><BR>Nina

NORTHWEST:<BR><BR>My son flew Northwest/KLM to and from Amsterdam several times and to and from Tokyo-they refused for various reasons,none reasonable! to credit him with the mileage.I was the one that tried to do it for him,so believe me, everything possible was done to get it right and they would not do it.<BR>They kept changing their reasons,when I had answers for their saying no.<BR>Won't fly them again!

A clarification: the flights that I tool were supposed to be non-smoking - and they became smoking flights when the flight attendants began to smoke. A lot of passengers joined in, and who is going to reprimand whom in such a circumstance?<BR>Also, privatizing Alitalia will not help the labor situation. It is virtually impossible to fire an employee in Italy; recently bank employees who had falsified documents and stolen money were reinstated by the courts as having been dismissed without sufficient cause. Any business with more than 15 employees in Italy is subject to this Rule 18 dismissal policy - hence you get some pretty bad service with very little recourse.

You are absolutely correct, Janice. Thanks for the clarification. Another problem in Italy is that many of the judges are left wing idealogues. Things will begin to change in Italy when businesses start to fail because they cannot keep up with foreign competition.

I also think some of the the comments here are dated. I flew Alitalia March 2001, there wasn't any smoking, no luggage in the aisle or any other inappriate location, and the food was awful (but I never expect much from plane food anyway so I plan accordingly.) the flight attendents were fine, on each flight they gave my son a kid 'goody' bag with activities. Also our flights were on time. AFter I had booked this flight I heard similar horroy stories but all was fine except the food (although even that was better on the return flight).