My wife and I took this flight, AZ619/DL 6686, on Thursday 29 August 2019. We were on separate reservations bought through Delta, as my wife is spending an additional week in Italy. We were thus able to book the aisle seats in the last center row (39). Alitalia did not assign the middle seat between us, so we ended up with a fairly comfortable coach experience.
The flight was scheduled to depart at 1615 EDT and arrive at FCO at 0700 CEST.
We arrived at IAD around 1215 EDT. Alitalia's counter is in the front near the west end of the terminal. We were waited on by a pleasant if not very well trained counter agent. For example, she had never heard the term "SkyTeam Elite Plus" before, and therefore declined to give us the benefits we believe we were entitled to, such as checking a second bag for free, and lounge access. Also, Alitalia is not a participant in TSA Pre-Check, so we had to go through the regular TSA process. As it turned out, my wife put the items that put her big suitcase over the limit into my suitcase, so we didn't have to pay extra.
After asking ourselves why did we bother flying on Delta and its partners for decades to earn status, we headed through the TSA west security entrance. We got lucky as there were only about 5 pax in front of us at the ticket check, and then the TSA people didn't make us go through the nude-o-scope, but rather let us go through the magnetometer (we still had to take laptops out and shoes off). We got through the regular TSA security check rapidly, so I give good marks to the TSA staff at IAD.
Alitalia's website indicated that they were using the Turkish Airlines lounge, and that SkyTeam Elite+ were allowed entry as a "Common Lounge". The Turkish lounge is the old Air France salon (used by ANA as a "Cygnet Lounge" in the morning). When we got there, a friendly and very large Turkish Airlines employee told us that Alitalia had moved to the new Air France salon, and that it had reopened, so we headed there. That club is located across the concourse from Gates A20/22. Alitalia used A16 for its flight.
The concierge was a lady whom we had seen at the AF club in past years; while I don't think she remembered us, she confirmed that we were entitled to lounge access, and let us both in. There is a separate thread on here about the AF club, and I have some pictures of what it looks like, both upstairs and downstairs.
While I think the food and drink offerings have been reduced from before the renovations (for example, they took out the self-serve beverage dispenser and no longer had plastic bottles of Perrier in the self-serve refrigerator and not very many sweet goods), they still had the tasty ham and butter sandwiches on crusty French bread. The champagne was Laurent Perrier (don't know the year or the cuvee) and the draft beer was a local microbrew, DC Brau's "The Corruption" pale ale, which is pretty darn tasty. Like at the Delta SkyClub in DCA, there are no self serve adult beverages, but the bartender was friendly and helpful. Also, kudos to AF for their furniture selection. I sat in a chair that is about as comfortable as any chair I've sat in for a long time.
We ended up with about two hours of quality lounge time.
Boarding started at 1515, 60 minutes before the flight. Once again, the crack Alitalia staff tried to deny us another benefit of our status, priority boarding. Our boarding cards were confusing, because they stated both "Sky Priority" and "Zone 2" on them. Zone 2 was for regular, non-status pax. We lined up with the "Magnifica" (J class) pax. When the AZ staff tried to get us to move to the Zone 2 line, we stood our ground, and finally they relented and let us board after the J pax got on board. I think we were the only coach pax with status on the flight.
The AZ staff actually got the plane boarded quickly. It appeared to us that J and PE classes were sold out. J had 20 seats, five rows of 1-2-1. PE consisted of about 3 rows of 2-3-2 seating.
15 minutes before the door closed AZ let their "Economy Lite" pax board, and I got the impression that they didn't get an assigned seat, but could take any seat left on the flight. Fortunately, the flight didn't sell out, and no one tried to sit between us. It appeared to me that there were about 10 empty seats in the back half of the cabin. Our row, 39, only had three middle seats, with now seat directly behind 38C. I'd sit in that row again if I could get an empty seat in the middle.
Flightaware.com shows that our flight pushed back at 1613 and was wheels up at 1635 (from runway 30). I slept through the cocktail service but woke up near Frredericton, New Brunswick (about 90 minutes into the flight), which is when dinner service started. The meat option was sort of a tasty beef stew witth peas, carrots and potatoes, which was surprisingly good. My wife went for the pasta option, which she ate but didn't like. I got a 5 ounce glass of red wine with dinner, which was the only adult beverage I had on that flight. AZ had set up a counter in the back galley where there were self-serve bottles of Coke, Coke Zero, water and at least one juice container. I availed myself of that a couple of times; the lavs were between the forward and rear Y cabins.
The AZ cabin crew set up what looked to me like a circus tent covering the 2 or 3 rows directly behind us, which is where the crew rest seats were
Breakfast service was a sort of chocolate filled pastry (I wouldn't dignify it as pan au chocolat).
Compared to Delta or Virgin Atlantic, the AVOD system was limited, and I stuck to the airshow, which I generally find more interesting than the entertainment offerings, but that's just me.
As I couldn't sleep after dinner, I watched our route, which was somewhere around the 50th parallel, almost reached the southwesternmost point of Ireland, then flew just to the west of Land's End, Cornwall, before reaching the west end of Brittany near Brest, then heading over Nantes, Nice and the north end of Corsica, then heading to the Tuscan Archipelago before turning south to land at Rome at 0633 CEST, 7 hours and 58 minutes for the 4,628 miles travelled. We parked at FCO Terminal 1 Gate E14 (614) according to Flightaware at 0641. At Rome, you are not compelled to immediately go to the immigration facility, but can wander about the terminal (there is an AZ "Casa Alitalia" lounge to the left of E14 walking toward immigration, but we didn't try to enter.
We got to immigration before they opened the self serve gates, which US passport holders can use. We got stuck in a 30 minute line to see an immigration officer while the self-serve gates opened about 10 minutes after we joined the line.
We had to wait for our luggage until the luggage showed up off two other flights that were assigned to our carousel (from Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires).
We were reunited with our bags around 0745, and then it took 10 minutes or so to walk to the FCO railway station, where we made the 0812 local train for Trastevere station, where we connected to the #8 tram to get to our hotel across the street from the Largo Argentina.
VERDICT: I'd take this flight again. If Delta is going to sell code share seats on this flight, they need to make sure that the AZ ground staff treat Delta pax with status correctly. AZ is basic transportation in the back, but it was punctual on this trip, the aircraft was clean (the interior was attractive), and the AF lounge is always a hit.