Arnur

AlicorporateUK

Hi and welcome to the Alitalia forum, Arnur.

Starting from airport experience: FCO has greatly improved in the last couple of years or so - transfers (especially B-E) are a walk in the park (no security, just passports and there's hardly any queue when using the e-gates), facilities-wise again significant improvements on that front as well plus your TLV flight will depart from the brand new concourse (E), shame that you will not be able to make the most of the new [Alitalia] lounge, though. On-board experience: it will most likely be a 321 and I would strongly suggest to either invest a few Euros on an emergency exit seat or alternatively you could select a seat within the first 6 rows (depending on the loads at the front i.e. business, but most likely quite busy), free-of-charge, during check-in (48 hours before your flight, this has recently changed - and make sure to proceed straight away otherwise the best seats will have already gone!). No in-flight entertainment I'm afraid, unless you will be travelling in January and score one of the soon-arriving A321neo (it remains to be seen whether they will have IFE, though). Concerning the catering: Alitalia has recently announced a new service on flights of over 3 hours - while I have no idea how this looks like to be perfectly honest with you (I can only say that the catering in business has somewhat improved), apparently however they now serve a tray with a meal(ish) rather than just a sandwich; my suggestion is to request a special meal (during the booking process or alternatively your corporate travel agent will surely be able to do this for you) just to be on the safe side (this is indeed possible on services of 3 hours-plus).

Oh, and the aircraft which operated your Tirana flight back in the days would have probably been a Super 80 (MD80)

Please let us know in case of any further questions or indeed doubts in relation to the above.

G

Arnur

Thanks a lot for the info and the warm welcome AlicorporateUK, I'm however flying from Tel Aviv to Rome, so I was curious mostly about the Alitalia experience at Ben Gurion (where I also was last in the early 1990s). But I will connect at FCO, so I'm glad the airport has improved.

You are absolutely right, I started to wonder about that after hitting the Send button. In fact, the plane was the most memorable part of that journey, rather than the cheese sandwich.

AlicorporateUK

I've just realised you will be travelling the other way round (i.e. TLV-FCO) so you will have to go through security and passports once in Rome but no worries whatsoever - you will still be able to use the e-gates (if you have a EU or even US passport), security could get busy at times (mostly due to the funnel-style layout) but, again, you should be absolutely fine; your BDS flight will most likely depart from a B gate for a total transfer time of roughly 20 minutes (possibly even shorter but it all depends on whether 1. You will get a remote stand and 2. The queues at security).

Safe travels,

G

AlicorporateUK

Nothing worth mentioning really, just make sure to turn up early due to the usual queues at security Oh, and a couple of months back our 321 was parked at a remote stand and then again the same once we arrived in Rome so that was a bit unlucky!

G