Alitalia's Boeing 777-200 returns to LAX on Saturday, June 5, 2010.
Schedules have been loaded on the Alitalia website, but not yet on Skyteam or Delta. Service will be daily except Tuesday and Friday. Depart FCO 9:25, arrive LAX 13:25 (13 hours); depart LAX 15:25, arrive FCO 12:15 (11 hours, 50 minutes). They've kept the same schedules as when they dropped the flights in November 2008, after only five months.
Good connections to PMO, CTA, FLR, VCE and other cities in Italy and Southern Europe.
The AZ 777-200 has 42 Magnifica class seats and 249 economy class seats.
This is very welcome news indeed, and the flight should perform well if the airline can restore confidence among the travelling public. However, I have some question about the profitability of the route, even with a very high occupancy ratio, because the flights require four pilots rather than only two.
Here is an excerpt from my previous posting about this route:
"According to the official statistics published by the Los Angeles International Airport Authority, Alitalia transported a total of 49,968 passengers between LAX and FCO from June 1 through and including November 8, 2008. That amounts to an average load factor of 75.98%."