Hello,

I am considering booking flights for my whole family to Italy for Christmas. The least expensive option is Alitalia but I hear they are notoriously unreliable and may be going out of business.

Any comments on flying them?

Thanks!

Check out the Alitalia forum...

My ex-girlfriend used to fly them and she didn't have kind words....

pmytkowi, welcome to FlyerTalk! Please follow the discussion in our Alitalia forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz

It's difficult to say.....
money should be enough tille the new year.... but who knows.

Just think if Alitalia goes badly or the employees are striking over the cutbacks needed in a new financial arrangement, you will be on edge whether there's going to be a strike and at Christmas time you will not be able to manuver as other airline flights will be already heavily booked for the holidays and fares have gone throuhg the roof. If you have prepaid land arrangements, they may be non-refundable or the cancellation period requires you to forfeit a large part of payment.

It's all a risk.

Hello,

I am considering booking flights for my whole family to Italy for Christmas. The least expensive option is Alitalia but I hear they are notoriously unreliable and may be going out of business.

Any comments on flying them?

Thanks!

I have used them a couple of times and there is nothing much to complain. Bagage always arrived (unless with AirFrance). I would recomand you to use it. Not worse than most other cariers.

I've flown Alitalia may times NYC to Tokyo RT and have always had a good flight. No problem but the last time, the unions were flexing their muscles as Alitalia was put on the auction block. It was horrible touch and go hours before my departures as the unions would call a series of one day strikes and then postpone them. I had to be on the phone to Alitalia trying to get a backup plan. Even though i like to fly Alitalia, I won't book them until I know if the Italian government has found a buyer for the bankrupt airline and that the new management has a restructuring plan that has the support of the unions.
I don't want to go again what I did the last time.

I wouldn't do it long haul. Short haul is ok, the operation is more efficient and there are more alternatives if things do go wrong.

They never strike over Christmas, anyway (there seems to be an unofficial truce at Christmas and over the summer holidays).

They never strike over Christmas, anyway (there seems to be an unofficial truce at Christmas and over the summer holidays).

Glad to know that the Italians traditionally are not disposed to strike around Christmas. In the US, the strikes often are around holidays to apply the most negociating leverage. Still flights are full at Christmas and will not be any backup options even if the Alitalia tried to book one on another carrier. Also, other airlines may not want to accept Alitalia tickets because they don't want to be stuck trying to collect months later from a bankrupt Alitalia.

hey folks,
sorry for starting another one of these 'will alitalia be around?' threads, but the last one seemed to veer off into whether 50 mins is enough time to connect in MXP. anyway, i'm looking at buying a TXL-NYC r/t leaving in sept and returning the last week of december. now...we all keep hearing that alitalia only has enough money to last til the end of the year, so would any of you regular AZ flyers feel comfortable buying a ticket that has the return portion that late in the year? i guess for added security, i can buy the DL codeshare that goes JFK-FCO/MXP for the return portion. anyway, i'm curious to hear what you folks have to speculate.
w

(SNIPPED - THREADS MERGED - NOW IRRELEVANT)

I don't know what to say on this one. If it was me, and as we're talking quite far in advance, I would book the ticket and book a cancellable award flight back with miles as an insurance if things were to go wrong (my FFP allows me to make O/W bookings - that's also why I'm not that worried about getting back from Tokyo in mid October with my AZ flight, especially as I have lodging there.)

But it also helps that flights from Japan to the UK are much much cheaper than flights from the UK to Japan. I don't know what the usual prices are from TXL to NYC, so I don't know what I'd do in your position. To be honest I'd very likely do what you've suggested and get the flight as a DL codeshare and let DL worry about it.

I suggest you just follow the day by day Alitalia business and political deliberations by Googling "Alitalia News"
It will give you all the recent Alitalia news by the hour and date. You can then figure out our how much risk you want.

I asked last week about taking the chance on an Alitalia flight for Christmas in Italy; I finally decided to buy the tix if I could get flight insurance. The first one I called would not guarantee for any problems with Alitalia. That did it for me!

The important fact is on which airlines ticket stock the ticket is issued. If you just book an Alitalia flight operated by Delta, odds are slim to none that they will actually accept the ticket if Alitalia goes belly up.

The other way around - if you book a Delta ticket on flights operated by Alitalia, you should be safe since Delta as the ticketing carrier has your money and they have to reaccomodate you (or at least refund your money).

So - ticket numbers starting with 055 are risky, ticket numbers on other airlines ticket stock should be on the safe side.

I would (and have) avaoid(ed) Alitalia as best as possible ! No reason take a gamble as there are plenty of other reputable airlines around.

There is no commercial reason for Alitalia to be around. (except perhaps cheap ex-MXP fares on BA etc for us consumers)

I would (and have) avaoid(ed) Alitalia as best as possible ! No reason take a gamble as there are plenty of other reputable airlines around.

There is no commercial reason for Alitalia to be around. (except perhaps cheap ex-MXP fares on BA etc for us consumers)

Rambuster.... we need alitalia for a very simple reason: their *amazing* mistake fares, honored everytime by them.
This is a very important reason to remain on the market for a FTer:)

Rambuster.... we need alitalia for a very simple reason: their *amazing* mistake fares, honored everytime by them.
This is a very important reason to remain on the market for a FTer:)

hm, didn't think about the mistake fares !
As far as I am concerened they can keep flying as long as they want - provided no more EU tax payer money is sunk into it.

Welcome to Flyer Talk!

Back in 2005, I flew IAD-MXP (when they were still flying the route), I had a bad experience. Even though (I think) the plane was air-worthy, the flight attendants were very surly. In addition, they couldn't get the in-flight entertainment to work. And, one of the overhead lights wouldn't turn off (overnight flight) - so the flight attendant put the metal lid from a finished hot meal over the light. Had that fallen, the poor passenger would have been severly burned. :eek:

Again, I was NOT impressed.

Let's be honest: Alitalia provides a sub-par service. Period.