I transferred two times through FCO during the last weekend. Everytime for most of the departing flights the gates were not announced until about 1 hour prior to departure. Only "E" was shown as departure gate, which is pretty ...... when you want to visit a lounge.

Casa Italia in the satellite terminal is state of the art whereas the lounge in the main terminal building is crap. When you go to the satellite terminal and into the Casa Italia lounge they will probably inform you that your flight is departing from the main terminal (they already know the gate number) and you have to go back (and then go through security) which can be quite an odyssee when you are looking for signs to your gates. You need to follow "Gate E51-59" although your departure is E1-E29.

But that explains why the Casa Italia lounge in the satellite is almost empty during the morning.

Has that late E-gate announcement been like that since Terminal 2 was reopened and H and G were combined into the E-gate numbering?