fly747first

Hello AZ flyers. Just want to share my terrible experience with Malitalia, Alitalia I mean.

FCO - MIA, B777-200ER Magnifica

Check-In
A nice agent quickly checked me in at the Magnifica line and wished me a pleasant journey. Very friendly and professional approach.

Lounge
The Alitalia lounge at FCO is falling apart--broken seats, walls full of scratches, and poorly maintained in general. Food selections are limited, but tasty.

Boarding
Chaos at the gate. The staff seemed more concerned about gossiping with each other than boarding on time and we ended up boarding half an hour behind schedule; no reason given.

Pre-departure
The cabin crew barely welcomed passengers. Warm pre-departure beverages were eventually offered though the lady working my side of the aisle spilled some orange juice on my seat without any apology.

Amenities
Magnifica passengers are provided a decent size pillow, a duvet, and a Ferragamo amenity kit. Sadly, my duvet was full of hair and my amenity kit was stolen (I suspect by a Classica Plus passenger).

IFE
Very limited and not worth discussing.

Meals
The first meal was excellent. However, the second meal was completely unacceptable: literally three pieces of bread and a single slice of a weird tasting cheese along with a small fruit plate. There were no snacks in-between meals on this flight exceeding 11 hours. The cabin crew disappeared for most of the flight so you could not even find them to request additional beverages.

Cabin Condition and Seats
I personally find the Alitalia Magnifica seats to be quite comfortable. The problem is that Alitalia does a lousy job cleaning its planes and taking care of the seats. The Magnifica cabin was filthy with hair all over the place as well as remnants of food and trash from several previous flights, not to mention the disgusting state in which all the lavatories were in.

Cabin Crew
The worst I have had on any airline. In all fairness, some of the male ones were great, but the female members were beyond lazy, rude, and simply irresponsible. Throughout their flight, they allowed their friends from Classica Plus to come walk through the Magnifica cabin and use the lavatories reserved for this class. I felt to sleep and when I woke up, my amenity kit was gone; then when I asked the only female cabin crew I could find, she was extremely obnoxious, rudely telling me they didn't have extras, not even a spare toothbrush which is all I needed. On final approach, glasses were not collected so by the time we touched down, many glasses fell on the floor breaking on impact and one passenger across from me nearly got cut.

Verdict
I don't think I would ever fly Alitalia again. To me, Alitalia could not be more careless, as it's one thing to not clean your planes well and another to have such lazy cabin crews that they leave many glasses uncollected before landing and overall, it is clear that their cabin crews do not take their passengers safety seriously--something that was evident as many of the female cabin crew joked with each other during the safety demo.

KLouis

This sounds the opposite of what my experience with AZ has been in several TATL flights and, of course, I can fully understand your being angry: simply no excuses! Still, let's stay pragmatic: either one is cut or not, there can't be such a thing as "nearly got cut".

fly747first

I'm pretty sure it is a violation of the US DOT for cabin crews to not collect glasses prior to landing though so regardless, AZ committed a violation. Luckily, no passengers were hurt by the broken glasses.

bungler

Sad to hear such stories!

I'm relieved that the hard product and meal at least, which are the strong points of AZ's J offer, didn't disappoint you.

In terms of ground service and cabin crew, well that can be very hit and miss.

Aircraft maintenance has historically been good with AZ imo, but for some reason it's not been so great these past few months.

fly747first

Yes, the hard product was fine... I find AZ's J seats to be very comfortable. Further, the main meal service was of great quality.

However, my issues were mostly due to poor cabin crew and gate agent attitude as well as extremely filthy, poorly cleaned planes, not maintenance in the traditional sense, just very dirty planes.

bungler

Yeah sorry aircraft maintenance isn't the right term, it's cabin cleaning that's been somewhat neglected for some reason.
Let's hope they get their act together sometime soon.

raistlin

fly747first, this is unacceptable. However, to be honest, I have flown AZ in C maybe 40 times in the last 5 years and never, ever had a similar experience.

fly747first

I flew three legs: DUS - VCE - FCO - MIA and in all three the aircrafts were beyond filthy with lavatories that looked like they hadn't been cleaned in months and hairs all over in the cabin. I think I'm just gonna stick to LH and LX. Never had such bad consecutive experiences.