Hi everyone, just wondering if anyone has successfully flown on Windjet Airlines from the mainland Italy to Sicily. I see that their airfare prices are less than 50% off all other carriers, is this possible? Can anyone share their experiences with me regarding this airline? I'm afraid to book without confirmation that it's a decent reliable airline. Also, when something seems too good to be true.....

Here you go: reviews on Wind Jet from www.airlinequality.com-it frankly doesn't look too good....

www.airlinequality.com/Forum/windjet.htm

Giulia - We used them last year Rome-Catania.

Outward flight was OK. Return flight was 2 hrs late.

They seem to contract out some of their flights to East European airlines - staff were Czech on our flight, I think.

I wouldn't use them again in a hurry ...

Steve

Thank you so much! I know that Alitalia is constantly a nightmare of tardiness and they are a huge airline! There's no way I would book with them. I thought it was too good to be true, they have 1 euro flights + taxes right now. It's only 99 euros to go from FCO to PMO when everyone else is over 240 euros. Ho hum.

With the additional information from Steve about the foreign flight crews, it sounds to me, Giulia, that Wind Jet will not be long for this world!

Try Air One. It flies Rome Fiumicino to both Palermo and Catania for less than Alitalia, and its service is not much worse than Alitalia's.

I've taken seven flights with Air One; two were more than an hour late (but never more than two hours) and the rest were on time or off by a few minutes. And they did change one departure time but informed me well in advance by e-mail.

Eloise, I saw the website for Airone, but in this case being we are going FCO to PMO then CTA back to FCO, it's more expensive with them. At least it was when I checked on itasoftware.com. Now I went on Airone's actual website and they only have an input method for round trip, not multi-leg journeys. I can call them in Italy, but I just haven't been mentally prepared to try to make a reservation over the phone in Italian. It's hard enough to do it in English when you call Alitalia! Our trip is so short this time, only 2 weeks, that I would be super sad if it was late even 2 hours. We have so little time, every second is accounted for/ Talk about setting us up for disaster, eh? You can't count on anything to happen as it's meant to in Italy, that's what we love about it! Thank you for the tip, though, I will maybe try to give them a ring today and at least see if it's the same price.

Giulia,

I use the Italian version, but there is a thing (next to From and To) that you can click that says "Solo andata" ("One way" in English, I suppose). I always fly into one airport and out of the other and book two one-way tickets.

If you must call them, use this number, where they have English-speaking operators:

39.06.48.88.0069

Giulia,

I saw on another thread that you're traveling in November, and I just pulled up a fare of 88.01 Euro Fiumicino to Palermo on November 15 and 89.38 Euro Catania to Fiumicino on 27 November, both prices <b>including</b> taxes.

No, I don't own shares in Air One (I don't even think I could; they're a subsidiary of Lufthansa), but in my relatively frequent visits to Sicily in the last few years they've served me reasonably well and inexpensively.

Eloise, I'm so bummed out about Air One, I really want to fly them but we get in at 1pm from London and their next flight is 5pm. I thought about doing the one way tickets, it's actually the same price as Alitalia's multitratta ticket, but like I said before, time is so tight that we don't want to sit around the airport for 4 hours waiting for a flight that has a high chance of being late, even if just by a little bit. I absolutely despise Alitalia. Last year when we got to the airport with our tickets from Pisa to Palermo they told us that service route didn't exist anymore and they acted like this was a totally normal occurence. That was mind boggling.

Giulia,

If you're flying on 2 separate tickets, anything shorter than a 4 hour layover between flights is taking a LARGE risk IMO!

If your first flight is delayed and you miss your onward departure, that aiirline doesn't have to do squat for you and can request that you buy a new ticket at the walkup fare...

Hope this helps,
Andre

P.S. Air One is not a Lufthansa subsidiary, they do cooperate extensively however.

Try calling Lufthansa to book your Air One flight. It worked for me a few years ago.

Thanks Andre, I agree, the two tickets are a bit precarious. I found a multitratta ticket on Alitalia for 179EU, which is not bad. I'm going to try to wait until 9/01 to see if the prices go down, we paid so much less last year and we travelled a further distance from PSA-PMO then CTA-FCO and it was only 89EU taxes included. I prefer Lufthansa but they are much higher.