Alitalia

It's probably going to be just fine. 99% of the time, when people comment on a flight it's to complain that something went wrong. If nothing went wrong on a flight, no one is going to comment. We've flown Alitalia with no problems at all. Actually found it to be pretty charming. Just keep in mind that what you're reading is NOT a random sample of Alitalia flyers.

The A330-200 is a good plane. It's the smallest wide body produced by Airbus. It's roughly comparable to the Boeing 767-400.
Alitalia introduced the A330 in its fleet after 2009, therefore the oldest it will be is 4 years old, which is rather new by any standard. I wouldn't worry too much about reviews online. If you can deal with the snobbish attitude of the Italian flight attendants you'll be fine.

You can check the configuration and ammeneties at www.seatguru.com or seatexpert.com. I would not worry. The airbus A330-200 is new and has all the usual items, in-seat entertainment, headset, blanket, pillow. seat pitch is about a half inch tighter than the same aircraft on other airlines. Crew attitude depends on their mood, and yours as well. I think most of the complaints are on back office type issues, slow response to customer problems, disorganized boarding queues. Chaos that Italians take for granted as a part of life and drives others nuts.

Thanks for the reassurance. I think there are some airbus 330's that are still from the old Air One fleet and the Chicago route unfortunately gets those. :( Bummer. Wish we had the 2009 fleet.

Mahesha, The biggest complaint I've seen about Alitalia is frequently losing checked luggage. I haven't seen any comments on that recently, so don't know if that's still the case. Have you read these: www.airlinequality.com/Forum/alit.htm www.seatplans.com/airlines/Alitalia/user-reviews www.flyertalk.com/forum/alitalia-millemiglia/1193022-alitalia-reviews.html Be sure to post a Trip Report when you get back describing your experience with Alitalia. The information may be of help to others here. Happy travels!

Air One old fleet consisted almost exclusively of B737. They started buying Airbus aircrafts in 2006. They introduced the a330 in their fleet in 2008. Just for comparison KLM still flies 747 and MD to the US dating back to 1989 and 1994 respectively.

That makes me feel a little better. I can handle the flight attendants not paying much attention to customers and I can also bring my own food - the part I was most worried about is old, dirty, dingy aircraft that looks like it's falling apart with gas station type bathrooms. That is what concerns me. And the inside looking like it's going to fall apart. :( It makes me scared.

I am sure the flight will be fine but don't know how clean the plane/seats will be. We have flown Alitalia several times most recently this past July on a return flight from Rome to Minneapolis via Chicago. Flight over was on Delta but back with air partner Alitalia. Don't know what kind of plane it was but was rather old and seats were very stained and gross so put down the supplied blanket to sit on. Flight did leave on time though. All the Alitalia flights we have flown on had no personal entertainment systems either which I like as it helps to pass time. Probably the worst aircraft I have been on was in 2011 when we flew to Warsaw on Lot Polish Air where things were duct taped together in the bathroom.

We used Alitalia in August 2010 roundtrip to Rome from O'Hare (we live in Northbrook.) Two words: NEVER AGAIN. We joke it was the Greyhound bus of airlines. And that's actually insulting to Greyhound! My family refused to use fly Alitalia again. I am not exaggerating. Would rather swim to Italy was what one of our kids said. So, we just used SwissAir to Italy in July of this year. We will use Swiss any time we can from now on. They are in and out of the International Terminal at O'Hare. Great, brand new plane, great service. Most important - "great" price, at least from Chicago to Italy!

NEVER USE ALITALIA! We have never had such an awful experience. It is 3 days before our trip and we just received our 3rd flight change, we made these plans 5 months ago. We were allowing ourselves 2 extra days in Rome before our cruise and now our flight is changed, not allowing us any time in Rome. Our hotel has been paid for, our plans for our extra days have been paid for, and the only thing Alitalia can offer us, if we want to get their on our original day is to pay and extra $1,000.00 each to fly business class. They cannot offer us anything, no compensation for the trouble this has caused us, no apology, nothing. We will never use Alitalia again.

The OP left on the 11th. Hopefully he will come back to post his experiences with Alitalia.

Hi - so our experience ended up being just fine! We had a RT from Chicago to Rome and it was a direct flight. On the way there we had the older Air One airbus that I didn't love but we slept after dinner and a few glasses of wine. The crew was nice enough, especially one of the guys. On the way back we had the newer airbus which was way better. It's not as nice as Singapore or Malaysian, but was nice enough. And way nicer than the Air One plane. We didn't check in bags, so no stories there. Flights were on time/early and we had no other problems or miscommunications.