I am planning on booking a flight from Thessaloniki, Greece to JFK and was wondering if I should buy tickets on Alitalia. The flight is on December 20th and offers a $200 cheaper rate than Olympic and especially other US airlines.
Is it safe to purchase these tickets, I heard Alitalia was having problems.
We just had an election here in Italy and the "outgoing" government approved and floated a huge loan to Alitalia so they should be in good standing for a while. Air France is still rumbling about buying them - we can only hope!
Course if you've not flown Alitalia they can be a hoot! Often times passengers STILL clap and cheer when the plane lands! Gotta love it!
They're safe but service is sometimes ... well, lacking!
Ciao,
Ron
Just back from a week in Italy, and all of the press on Alitalia is that the new Italian President is committed to a bailout of the airline. Just keep an eye on the news, but it should be fine.
Also, I had heard about "questionable" service on Alitalia...I can tell you that my experiences were perfectly fine. Helped that my flight from Chicago to Rome was less than half full! But Rome to Newark was nearly full and still good service. Nothing special, just polite and efficient.
Most impressive was my experience on the ground wiht Alitalia in Chicago...due to a delay with an earlier connecting flight, I nearly missed the Alitalia flight. The agents called and had the gate held open for me, literally ran me through Security, and had an agent waiting on the other side of the security line to escort (run!) me to the plane...I got to my seat and the plane pushed back from the gate...wow!!
