Keter

Some facts...

Call center in Moscow

is unable to changes tickets now (restructuring/ cost cutting?) and sends tickets to be processed to Italy. They say tickets will be processed several days before departure. That's probably OK except for the fact that some stupid agents do not even change reservations (so there will be no seats available when the ticket is due to be changed). When asking about changing 'seat reservation' some refer to aircraft seatmaps... Sooo stupid...

US call center - 'we have some problems with your ticket; we will call you back'. No change in reservation (to ticket later), no call back.

Italy call center - same as US, but poor English. Again no reservation/ no call back.

Now seats are gone...

I am so happy I am a bit flexible but this is the most STUPID situation I have ever seen with the tickets change.

Enjoy Alitalia, as that's possibly your last days... There can't be an airline without customer service.

bungler

there must have been some problem with your ticket?

orbitmic

Yes but problems with a ticket occur and a call centre is there to either fix them or explain they cannot be fixed. The AZ call centre is not good and increasingly airport operations are handled by airlines such as AF or kl which do not have access to the full AZ reservation system! Had a "problem" with my ticket in June (all flights confirmed in j throughout booking process and confirmation but two effectively only in y when etix was issued. Call centre was useless, airport office in France (including AZ uniform) had no access to AZ reservation system, everybody would say this will be resolved but no one did anything. My first segment was dl and when I went to them they just ended up rebooking me on the dl number for the same flights after wasting time with AZ on the phone. AZ is very good in flight but back office is possibly worse than before.

orbitmic

Yes but problems with a ticket occur and a call centre is there to either fix them or explain they cannot be fixed. The AZ call centre is not good and increasingly airport operations are handled by airlines such as AF or kl which do not have access to the full AZ reservation system! Had a "problem" with my ticket in June (all flights confirmed in j throughout booking process and confirmation but two effectively only in y when etix was issued. Call centre was useless, airport office in France (including AZ uniform) had no access to AZ reservation system, everybody would say this will be resolved but no one did anything. My first segment was dl and when I went to them they just ended up rebooking me on the dl number for the same flights after wasting time with AZ on the phone. AZ is very good in flight but back office is possibly worse than before.

Keter

The original ticket was issued more than one year ago that's possible reason they 'could not see it in the system' (they told me they had a problem with the server and promised to call me back...) + two segments were invol. exchanged to another ticket which is not properly linked to main ticket.

Now the fare recalculation shall not work properly and maybe some other things, but the ticket was voluntarily changed two times already (in addition to all invol. changes).

Its all AZ's work, not mine. They are just UNABLE to handle it because they don't have proper knowledge. Moscow (not all agents though) is worst at this.

But the attitude is great, 'I am here to help you' Some airlines do not have such attitude, so at least I can appreciate this.

raistlin

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9800; it) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Just for my curiosity, how can possibly the ticket be more than 1yr old and still be honored? Did you change it due to some special circumstances?

alesfo

It is very annoying that in the airports where AF or KL handle AZ's tickets and reservations they have very limited access and can only do basic operations. It is also wierd because for instance in LIN a SEA agent had no problem to modify an AZ ticket to allow for a stopover, or change the departure airport of the first leg of my flight--all things that the KL agents in AMS could not do.

Also, the call centers outside of Italy (I tried Ducth and French) are not very efficient. In the Dutch one, after requiring an English-speaking agnt, it happened to me to speak to some young lady that spoke poor English, no Italian, and no Dutch. On the other hand, I generally had good experiences with the Italian italian AZ call center, calling from abroad (but to be honest in that case I speak Italian with them).

bungler

yes I would generally agree with the above comments - intervention of AF/KL tends to complicate things, and the Italy call centre is the most functional one, especially if you speak Italian.

raistlin

That's because, IIRC, LIN still uses ARCO (Alitalia's own system) as departure control and ticketing backend, so those agents have access to ARCO and thus to the whole reservation.

On the other hand, in the outstations, that might not be the case.

charlesswe

Not to hijack the thread, but I've also had terrible experiences with the AZ call centers. I'm trying to get in touch with an airport office (the MXP or LIN one). I know they are outsourced, but they do the job.

Thing is, the phone numbers listed on AZ's own website are not reachable via Skype.

bungler

did you not try +390665649

you are supposed to use a real phone I guess

TallestHotelInJapan

I had today also the "pleasure" to speak with them - I called the Dutch number. Isn't everything in Europe in the same call center (despite the country specific numbers?).

Same. Promised a call back but of course there was no call. And yes, no clue or unwilling to work. Yeah, that is Alitalia.

bungler

The one in Italy it's the best and most central, would give you most information. In foreign countries depending on time of day you might get someone from different country, can't help you, etc.

VIGONE

I have had success dealing with the Albania Call Center ---friendly and very helpful.
Only 1 time did I have difficulty and not sure where that center was.

bungler

At one point the Italy call centre was going to entirely delocalise to Albania, although I don't think that ever happened.

--maybe Albania is one of the more advance ones

-there's always a couple of weaker/poor operators unfortunately at any of the call centres; a second call usually works if one of those failed.