Thanks, Often1!
I may not have made it clear but when I said "We had an Alitalia ticket to fly from SFO to PMO (Palermo)", I meant that our ticket was issued by Alitalia. I had booked directly with them. Our first leg to JFK was on Delta and the other two legs (to FCO and then PMO) were on Alitalia.
Not sure if I entirely understand. You are saying that under the circumstances Alitalia owes me the difference between the PE fare and the Y fare, even though it was the Delta flight being delayed that caused the whole problem?
Additional fact: when Delta was rebooking me, they asked Alitalia for some kind of authorization to rebook me in business class or premium economy with a partner airline, and Alitalia (for reasons that nobody explained to me) did not come through with this authorization. After issuing me a business class boarding pass for the JFK-FCO flight, they wouldn't authorize a business class or PE reissuance for the transatlantic flight.
Originally Posted by
Often1
Two entirely separate issues:
1. J Upgrade - That is a refund, not compensation. You will have a fight with AZ because they will point to DL as the late-delivering carrier and DL will tell you that you held a PE ticket and any side deal with AZ is between you and AZ.
2. EC 261/2004 downgrade compensation - This applies only to the operating carrier and this was a departure from the US to the EU. The operating carrier causing the downgrade was DL and as a non-EU carrier, EC 261/2004 compensation does not apply on a US-EU flight. AZ, the EU carrier, did not downgrade you, you simply did not fly on its aircraft and presumably did not want to wait a day to be rebooked on the same AZ flight the next day.
3. PE-Y refund - You did not say who the plating (marketing) carrier of the ticket was, but that carrier owes you a refund of the PE to Y fare difference.
Before fussing too much that you may have received the short end of the stick, it may well be that the two refunds come to somewhere along the lines of the 75% you would have received had EC 261/2004 applied (although they may not) in which case you may fuss, but it gets you nowhere.