Hand luggage?

Welcome to Alitalia. We just flew it this past May 13, from JFK to Rome. Like most airlines, our experience was that you're allowed one standard carry on bag and what's usually called a "personal item" like a purse or a smaller backpack. The confusion comes from their website at http://www.alitalia.com/US_EN/your_travel/baggage/index.aspx which says that you're allowed only 1 piece of hand luggage at a maximum of 8kg (which is about 17 1/2 pounds - hard to do). You'll see that policy is described as being in effect as of May 1, 2011. But we flew two weeks after that. Here was our experience: We had one rolling carryon bag each AND one backpack each (sort of a large daybag size). We didn't have to check any of those. They weighed only the rolling carryon bags, which came in at 12kg. The woman at the Alitalia counter told us that that was slightly over the 10kg limit (note that it was NOT an 8kg limit, as found on that website). When we offered to move some items out of those bags and into our personal items (which are not weighed), she just smiled and handed us our boarding passes. We didn't have to do any repacking or shifting of items. Obviously, I can't promise what your experience will be like. Good luck.

Can't say for Alitalia, never flown them. RyanAir does consider a purse a carry on piece. I've seen women stuffing them into their other carry on at the gate. I guess it'll be how strict Alitalia is.

I would suggest to your wife that she leave enough room in her carry-on to fit her purse in if need be. This way she'll be covered both ways. Donna