My husband and I are flying from the US to Rome for a few days and then on to Sicily for a RS Best of Sicily tour. We will be flying to and from Sicily on Alitalia airlines and plan to only do carry-on luggage. Their website shows the bag maximum size is 45" or 21 x 13 x 9. I would like to buy a RS Rolling Carry-on, which is 21 x 13.5 x 9. Since the Alitalia bag limit is a little narrower I'm wondering if anyone has flown with them. Will I be able to get a bag that is 13.5 - 14" in the overhead storage or know how strict they are with the bag size?
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
Alitalia's actual size restrictions are in centimeters, so the rounded-off inch description is not accurate: https://www.alitalia.com/en_us/fly-alitalia/baggage/hand-baggage.html. 35 cm = 13.7795 in.
Posted by
Morrison, CO, USA
893 posts
I will be interested to see what all of the replies have to say. We are flying in Oct from Nice to Rome (on Alitalia) and do carryon. When are you traveling? If you are traveling before Oct I would love to hear what your experience with Alitalia was like.
Have a great trip and I'm sure you'l enjoy your tour!
Mimi
Posted by
Lookout Mountain, GA, United States
68 posts
I just flew with them last month from Rome to Amsterdam. I have a carry-on that meets Delta requirements (and it was a Delta ticket), and they were real clear that the bag had to be checked because it was oversized by their standards.
Hmmm . . . only .5 over - I'm interested to see what others say.
Posted by
OP
6 posts
Thanks, Janet. That is what I was afraid of. Did you check your bag at the ticket counter, and if so what did they charge you. Or was it at the gate they made you check it, which I'm assuming was free.
Posted by
70 posts
I will be flying Alitalia from Rome to Palermo in April. I may need to check a second bag due to the size restriction. Would love feedback on the cost to check an additional bag on Alitalia. On a recent flight back home from Paris....the charge to check our small bag of toiletries was 75 euros on Air France. That was our BAD for buying a few extra souvenirs for the Grandkids.
Tess
Posted by
US
605 posts
We flew from Palermo to Rome last April. You need to look at the weight restriction too, which is 8kg or 17.6 pounds. They were very strict about that, so you'll want to be aware of that in addition to the size of your bag. Have a great trip!
Posted by
OP
6 posts
6/16/16 - We got home from our trip to Sicily yesterday so I thought I'd give an update to this post. The bags we used were the RS rolling carry-on and the only thing Alitalia paid attention to was weight. The overhead bins were actually larger than the Delta airplane(s) we took for our Iowa to Minneapolis connecting flights. They didn't pay any attention to size or weight of our "personal item" bags.