Alitalia FCO/LAX Flights for Winter 2010 through Spring 2011
Sep 21st, 2010, 07:35 AM
#1
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Alitalia FCO/LAX Flights for Winter 2010 through Spring 2011
According to the current Alitalia web schedules, the FCO/LAX nonstop flights will operate THREE times weekly on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from November 1, 2010 through May 31, 2011, increasing on June 1, 2011 to FIVE per week (daily except Tuesdays and Thursdays). That means seven full months with only three flights per week.
Sep 21st, 2010, 07:49 AM
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No offense, but why does this bother you? It is a financial decison.
Alitalia is now under private ownership, their financials have improved immensely (that is, they are no longer on the verge of bankruptcy), and they have no doubt crunched the numbers to determine that three flights a week will cover all the passengers who want a direct flight on their airline between LAX and FCO.
Alitalia is now under private ownership, their financials have improved immensely (that is, they are no longer on the verge of bankruptcy), and they have no doubt crunched the numbers to determine that three flights a week will cover all the passengers who want a direct flight on their airline between LAX and FCO.
Sep 21st, 2010, 08:09 AM
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I am simply passing on public information! Obviously, if Alitalia thought that it could fill five flights per week between FCO and LAX during April and May, it would have scheduled accordingly! However, previous advance schedules reflected five flights per week during the spring of 2011, so this is a reduction in frequency. I also note that the "surge" in flights beginning in June is no different than Alitalia's schedules (for ORD, BOS and JFK) dating back to 1970 (if not before). At least as far is Alitalia is concerned, seasonal traffic trends between Italy and the U.S. have not changed that much in four decades!!
Sep 21st, 2010, 01:33 PM
#6
Alitalia (code-share Delta) is currently the only airline that operates non-stop flights between Los Angeles and Rome. (GAC is a frequent contributor of very helpful and up-to-date transportation information.)
Thanks, GAC.
Thanks, GAC.
Jun 6th, 2011, 11:45 AM
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For the first time ever, Alitalia will be offering DAILY nonstop flights between Rome and Los Angeles, during July, August and September of 2011. Currently (June 2011), flights are daily except Tuesday. In October, flights will be four times per week, reducing to three per week in November. While Alitalia has served LAX (off and on) for many years beginning in 1984 (with a long hiatus beginning in 2002), there has never yet been a daily flight. Alitalia (which code shares with Delta on this route) offers the only nonstop service between California and Italy. The Boeing 777-200 used seats 249 in economy class and 42 in Magnifica class.
Jun 6th, 2011, 04:24 PM
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Just flew that LAX-FCO flight with a business-class award ticket.
Service was fine, the meal was great. The aircraft is an A320 which is a little long in the tooth. They have Empower ports, which most airlines hopefully are going away from. My main point of comparison are Delta and Air France business-class products for trans-Atlantic flights.
They did lend me a big Empower box though, with Europe plugs. I had an adapter handy so I charged up my iPod and iPhone.
They gave you one of those accessory bags filled with stuff I didn't really check out. Forgot to put a toothbrush on my carryon so I opened it for that but was a lousy toothbrush. I'm sure the designer's samples in there might be appreciated by some people.
The seats look old, not as clean as I recall Air France business class. They don't lie flat completely either, so some strain on my lower-back trying to sleep, which I didn't do as well as I'd hoped.
I will say the flight path out of LAX, you fly out west and you can see the coastline up to Malibu looked beautiful. Didn't have my camera handy though.
Where the aggravation came in was the connecting flight to PMO. Originally booked for a flight taking off at 16:00 so I would have had about 4 hour layover. I was okay with that and that was my itinerary for months and months.
Didn't realize until we were just about to land at FCO that Alitalia canceled that PMO flight and put me on a flight taking off over 4 hours later!
So I scrambled around when I landed, looking for an agent. I had to go all the way down to Gate H before I could find an agent and he said I'd probably be out of luck but that I could try going all the way to TErminal 1 on the other side of the airport for the ticket office.
Had nothing to lose except a potential 8-hour layover and getting into PMO at almost 10 PM, then having to drive in the dark to Castellammare del Golfo. Finally found someone in Gate D area who put me on a 15:25 flight (there were several flights to PMO departing well before 20:20, so I was really puzzled why they bumped me so far out).
She assured me that they could transfer my checked bags. I was fearing the thought that I would arrive in PMO around 16:30 and then my bag wouldn't be transferred from the later flight arriving around 21:30.
Well I land in PMO and my checked bag doesn't show up from the carousel. I started talking to the agent and he starts doing the processing to find the bag. He seems sure it's on the later flight.
I didn't know if I would have to return to the airport or if they'd deliver it to me in Castellammare del Golfo. As he was asking about that, another employee said they had my bag in a restricted area. They wanted to send it through the x-ray machine.
So it ended well but it was a lot of aggravation to a long journey (starting out from SJC to get on the LAX-FCO flight). This was my second experience with a Alitalia-operated flight. A couple of years ago, DL booked me on an MXP-FLR segment that was again canceled by Alitalia (back when there was a lot of talk about them going out of business or being bought out by KLM-AF). I had to scramble my itinerary at the last moment for that trip.
So I've heard all these horror stories about Alitalia. I only went for it because this was the best award seat I could get on DL for this time period.
One thing I'll say about Alitalia is that they provide a lot of stations in the Gate B area for charging your electronics while at the gate. Better than other airlines.
Service was fine, the meal was great. The aircraft is an A320 which is a little long in the tooth. They have Empower ports, which most airlines hopefully are going away from. My main point of comparison are Delta and Air France business-class products for trans-Atlantic flights.
They did lend me a big Empower box though, with Europe plugs. I had an adapter handy so I charged up my iPod and iPhone.
They gave you one of those accessory bags filled with stuff I didn't really check out. Forgot to put a toothbrush on my carryon so I opened it for that but was a lousy toothbrush. I'm sure the designer's samples in there might be appreciated by some people.
The seats look old, not as clean as I recall Air France business class. They don't lie flat completely either, so some strain on my lower-back trying to sleep, which I didn't do as well as I'd hoped.
I will say the flight path out of LAX, you fly out west and you can see the coastline up to Malibu looked beautiful. Didn't have my camera handy though.
Where the aggravation came in was the connecting flight to PMO. Originally booked for a flight taking off at 16:00 so I would have had about 4 hour layover. I was okay with that and that was my itinerary for months and months.
Didn't realize until we were just about to land at FCO that Alitalia canceled that PMO flight and put me on a flight taking off over 4 hours later!
So I scrambled around when I landed, looking for an agent. I had to go all the way down to Gate H before I could find an agent and he said I'd probably be out of luck but that I could try going all the way to TErminal 1 on the other side of the airport for the ticket office.
Had nothing to lose except a potential 8-hour layover and getting into PMO at almost 10 PM, then having to drive in the dark to Castellammare del Golfo. Finally found someone in Gate D area who put me on a 15:25 flight (there were several flights to PMO departing well before 20:20, so I was really puzzled why they bumped me so far out).
She assured me that they could transfer my checked bags. I was fearing the thought that I would arrive in PMO around 16:30 and then my bag wouldn't be transferred from the later flight arriving around 21:30.
Well I land in PMO and my checked bag doesn't show up from the carousel. I started talking to the agent and he starts doing the processing to find the bag. He seems sure it's on the later flight.
I didn't know if I would have to return to the airport or if they'd deliver it to me in Castellammare del Golfo. As he was asking about that, another employee said they had my bag in a restricted area. They wanted to send it through the x-ray machine.
So it ended well but it was a lot of aggravation to a long journey (starting out from SJC to get on the LAX-FCO flight). This was my second experience with a Alitalia-operated flight. A couple of years ago, DL booked me on an MXP-FLR segment that was again canceled by Alitalia (back when there was a lot of talk about them going out of business or being bought out by KLM-AF). I had to scramble my itinerary at the last moment for that trip.
So I've heard all these horror stories about Alitalia. I only went for it because this was the best award seat I could get on DL for this time period.
One thing I'll say about Alitalia is that they provide a lot of stations in the Gate B area for charging your electronics while at the gate. Better than other airlines.
Jun 6th, 2011, 04:37 PM
#10
scrb11, thanks for your review/report. I live in L.A. and would love a non-stop flight to Rome, but I vowed never to fly Alitalia again after a particularly nasty in-flight experience.
Now tell us about the wonderful time you had in Sicily!
Now tell us about the wonderful time you had in Sicily!
Jun 7th, 2011, 03:20 AM
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Since will all read about these bad experiences on Alitalia, I'm going to recount a "good" experience I had several years ago (when Alitalia was the "old" company, pre-bankruptcy and reorganization):
I flew LAX-MXP nonstop, perfectly on schedule. I transferred to a domestic MXP-FCO flight (60 minute connection), which departed and arrived perfectly on time. I then transferred to a domestic fCO-CAG flight (60 minute connection), once again in perfect time. And my luggage: it arrived with me in Cagliari!!! (I must have been extraordinarily lucky).
The only "mixup': I was "bumped" from my reserved first row seat from Fiumicino to Cagliari to the last row of the plane (perhaps the reservation system operated like an x-ray machine, inverting all records!).
On a different trip, because the return flight to LAX was oversold on Easter Sunday, I was unexpectedly upgraded to business class at no extra charge and no deduction of frequent flier points.
Seriously, folks, I've been watching the arrival/departure statistics of the FCO/LAX/FCO flights, and the timeliness has been quite good of late. Yesterday's flight arrive in Rome 25 minutes early. Many more flights have been arriving early by a few minutes. Then, there are the exceptions: delays of one or more hours. In one case, a delay of 19 hours (due to a mechanical problem).
Btw, the aircraft used on this route is the Boeing 777-200ER, not the Airbus 320 (which is used on Italian domestic and European routes and does not have the range for a transatlantic flight). This aircraft is now about 10 years old. Alitalia will be replacing the 777 in a couple of years with the new Airbus 350, which are on order. Older planes on other US routes are already being replaced with the brand-new Airbus 330-200, which has three classes of service (economy, economy plus and business).
HINT: if connecting at FCO to another Alitalia domestic flight, be sure to allow at least 2-3 hours connection time, and verify the operation of the connecting flight the day of your departure out of LAX. You have much less to worry if you're taking an outbound Italian domestic flight to connect at FCO to the outbound LAX flight: Alitalia typically ensures the connection to the USA (unless the domestic flight is really, really late).
I flew LAX-MXP nonstop, perfectly on schedule. I transferred to a domestic MXP-FCO flight (60 minute connection), which departed and arrived perfectly on time. I then transferred to a domestic fCO-CAG flight (60 minute connection), once again in perfect time. And my luggage: it arrived with me in Cagliari!!! (I must have been extraordinarily lucky).
The only "mixup': I was "bumped" from my reserved first row seat from Fiumicino to Cagliari to the last row of the plane (perhaps the reservation system operated like an x-ray machine, inverting all records!).
On a different trip, because the return flight to LAX was oversold on Easter Sunday, I was unexpectedly upgraded to business class at no extra charge and no deduction of frequent flier points.
Seriously, folks, I've been watching the arrival/departure statistics of the FCO/LAX/FCO flights, and the timeliness has been quite good of late. Yesterday's flight arrive in Rome 25 minutes early. Many more flights have been arriving early by a few minutes. Then, there are the exceptions: delays of one or more hours. In one case, a delay of 19 hours (due to a mechanical problem).
Btw, the aircraft used on this route is the Boeing 777-200ER, not the Airbus 320 (which is used on Italian domestic and European routes and does not have the range for a transatlantic flight). This aircraft is now about 10 years old. Alitalia will be replacing the 777 in a couple of years with the new Airbus 350, which are on order. Older planes on other US routes are already being replaced with the brand-new Airbus 330-200, which has three classes of service (economy, economy plus and business).
HINT: if connecting at FCO to another Alitalia domestic flight, be sure to allow at least 2-3 hours connection time, and verify the operation of the connecting flight the day of your departure out of LAX. You have much less to worry if you're taking an outbound Italian domestic flight to connect at FCO to the outbound LAX flight: Alitalia typically ensures the connection to the USA (unless the domestic flight is really, really late).
Jun 7th, 2011, 09:17 PM
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I have no complaints about the service on board.
I probably should have checked my connection, which originally allowed 4 hours between the landing of the LAX-FCO flight and the FCO-PMO flight. It's odd, I did get an alert about seat change a couple of days before I left but now, I'm still getting alerts for my original FCO-PMO flight on PageOnce.
Anyways, I'm not complaining about them changing me, but changing me to a much later flight. I guess I should pay better attention to these changes but have not had similar issues on other carriers. Fortunately, the staff at FCO and PMO, when I found them, were pretty good about helping me out.
Now that I'm in Sicily, a new set of probs. I drove to Erice and on the way back, I went to fill up the car at an Agip station. I only see Blu Diesel and so I try the Self-Service (this was around 1 PM when there was nobody around). My Visa doesn't work so I put in a 20 Euro note.
Then I go to fill up and see that the Blu Diesel nozzle is padlocked. I looked at the other island which didn't have a padlocked Blu Diesel nozzle but I'd paid for the other pump. Soon a motorist came up and tried to help me, suggested I drive back later (about 16 miles from my hotel). Apparently, you have 6 minutes to start fueling or else the machine locks up and doesn't give you money back or fuel. And turned out I have to use the Gasolio or something else, not the Blu Diesel, even though the A160 I rented is for diesel.
I will have to see if I can go out of my way to try to find the personnel at that station.
I probably should have checked my connection, which originally allowed 4 hours between the landing of the LAX-FCO flight and the FCO-PMO flight. It's odd, I did get an alert about seat change a couple of days before I left but now, I'm still getting alerts for my original FCO-PMO flight on PageOnce.
Anyways, I'm not complaining about them changing me, but changing me to a much later flight. I guess I should pay better attention to these changes but have not had similar issues on other carriers. Fortunately, the staff at FCO and PMO, when I found them, were pretty good about helping me out.
Now that I'm in Sicily, a new set of probs. I drove to Erice and on the way back, I went to fill up the car at an Agip station. I only see Blu Diesel and so I try the Self-Service (this was around 1 PM when there was nobody around). My Visa doesn't work so I put in a 20 Euro note.
Then I go to fill up and see that the Blu Diesel nozzle is padlocked. I looked at the other island which didn't have a padlocked Blu Diesel nozzle but I'd paid for the other pump. Soon a motorist came up and tried to help me, suggested I drive back later (about 16 miles from my hotel). Apparently, you have 6 minutes to start fueling or else the machine locks up and doesn't give you money back or fuel. And turned out I have to use the Gasolio or something else, not the Blu Diesel, even though the A160 I rented is for diesel.
I will have to see if I can go out of my way to try to find the personnel at that station.
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