Master

Dear Sir/Madam:

This is to point out to you an Alitalia officer's violation of Article 14 of the Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 (Text with EEA relevance) - Commission Statement.

I took a connecting flight from Shanghai Pudong to Belgrade via Milan on the **th July 2006. The flight from Shanghai to Milan was delayed by about 50 minutes. The flight from Milan to Belgrade was also delayed by about the same.

Seeing that the Milan-Belgrade delay meant that I was going to be late for the last inter-city bus to my final destination, so I had to take a hotel at midnight and continue very early in the morning, I wanted to check if this accumulated delay of roughly 2 hours perhaps qualified for some form of compensation. Upon enquiring with the gate agent (for the flight from Milan to Belgrade) if the text of EU Passengers Compensation Rights was available for perusal, I was told that she did not have them at the gate, and she instructed me to return two floors up and check with an Alitalia officer.

This I did. This was at gates B, and in one corner there were several Alitalia desks, but only one was manned, by a man in his 30s, with long curly black hair, who pronounced "r" gutturally (the French way) when speaking English.

While the gate agent had not been in a position to be helpful, she was at least courteous, the Alitalia clerk was very rude, offensive and totally incompetent.

He told me he did not have the text of the rights, and that I should not ask for them as "Canadians are not EU citizens" and I was "flying to the Balkans" where "they do not apply" (which is a lie), that he did not have the time for "this mockery", and that "if I did not have some serious question, I should leave". I tried reasoning with this man. I told him I wanted to talk to his boss. He said that he was "the boss for people like me".

He started talking to the next person in line and addressing their concerns -- not solving anything, just explaining that he cannot do anything (they were speaking in Italian, which I understand a little). I told him again to get me the list of Passengers' Rights or to call his boss and he told me to "fu.ck off". He then told me he was going to call the security/police. I told him to go ahead and do it.

He talked to someone on the phone who was obviously not the police. I waited. I asked him to act as an agent of an airline, but he just ignored me. The other passenger had left, there were no other passengers, and he ignored me, even started whistling some silly tune to himself. Of course, no police ever came.

There were other Alitalia clerks behind some screen. I could hear them talking to each other, I tried calling out someone else for assistance, but no one reacted. After 3-4 minutes one of them came out from behind the screen and out into the corridor. I tried talking to her, she looked at him inquisitively and he waived his hand dismissively so she went by without answering.

All this is in clear violation of the Article 14 which obliges the air companies from EU countries to display the Passengers Rights and give them to passengers for perusal upon request. Moreover, this is extremely offensive and absolutely unacceptable behaviour for service personnel. If this had happenned in China, this person would have lost his job on the spot.

Please note that on **th July I sent this same letter as an email to Alitalia Belgrade office who did not even confirm that they have received it.

They cannot be reached by phone either. When you call them, you get an automated message that leads you through, asking you to push several buttons, and after 3 minutes of this tells you that "all agents are still busy" and hangs up. This has happened the five times I phoned them -- all during their office hours.

Kindly address this issue and inform me of the outcome.

Regards,