I've flown Alitalia several times...never had a problem. No smoking means no smoking. My last flight in 9/2001 someone tried to light up in the bathroom. The Captain came back to reprimand the women...and she was an American.<BR><BR>Luggage in aisles and in the emergency exits???...Absolutely not. The attendants take-off and land while sitting in jumpseats in the emergency exits. They wouldn't be able to operate their seats if this was the case.<BR><BR>Food service...typical for coach class. Bring your own if you want something better.<BR><BR>Rudeness...I don't know. It depends on the person. Some people cry about every little thing and expect the attendents to coddle them the entire flight.<BR><BR>Let's face it, it's a flying cattle car. You pay for a seat and that's what you get.<BR><BR>And for the record, I've international on Delta, Air France, BA, TWA and US Air. They're all the same, just different colors.

Flew into Rome by Alitalia. The ItaliaTour package was a real deal - pick landing and depature cities and time, book as many hotels through them as you want to, etc.<BR>The attendants weren't so much rude as indifferent. Into Rome, there was some old guy behind us. Sounded like terminal ALzheimers, kept yapping out loud to no-one in particular (Greek?); the flight attendants wouldn't even try to tell him to shut up. <BR>On the way back - well, the security was disorganzied, since it was still being set up. We were told - "can't check in til the American security arrive"; the security was also Alitalia. We checked in, checked out luggage, then got told "oh, this security point is for before you check your luggage. Already checked? Just go around..."<BR>The flight into JFK was bad too. The lady beside us (Sept. 28th) was an ALbainian moslem married to an Egyptian, going to meet her husband. Her 4-yr-old was playing with the tray. When it was put up, he screamed and kicked the seat for 20 minutes, then lowered the seat himself. This time, the flight attendants did nothing but give the 4-year-old a soother!<BR>Good thing the plane was half empty - if I had to sit in front of that, I'd have killed him.<BR>Oh, yeah - the food was the same crud as other airlines. <BR>They aren't horrible, but I'll prefer KLM any day.<BR><BR>

The worst airline??? no, the best airline?? no. Very convienent for getting to and from Italy though. By the way, all of their pilots have been military-trained. All flights are officially non-smoking, but I usually try to spend my time in seat 0C in the unofficial smoking section - with the pilots. The food? My cat snubbed the chicken, but I've have had much worse on Lufthansa and US carriers.