MIAFlyer

Just a warning, in case there were not enough reasons to avoid Alitalia (surly cabin staff, tight seat pitch, delayed flights, etc.), Alitalia will not allow children to sit in an FAA approved child car seat. While travelling MIA-MXP-GVA, we had a purchased seat for our 14 month old son (as well as our 26 month old and 4 year old). At first, we were told no European airlines allowed child car seats. When we told the cabin staff we had used his car seat on Air France, BA, and Swiss, we were then told it was against Italian air regulators law. We then asked for further clarification from the senior cabin staff, who later got the pilot (who was actually the most civil of the bunch) that we were expected to hold the baby for the whole flight, even though he had his own purchased seat. He even agreed the baby would be safer in his car seat, but was not allowed to allow him to fly that way.

In return, Alitalia cancelled our connecting flight from MXP-GVA. Luggage was tagged MIA-MXP-GVA, but when we arrived in MXP, I was told "you have no reservation for this flight"... but I had a ticket, with luggage tagged all the way through, checked in from Alitalia in Miami. Got to spend 6 1/2 hours in Milan, courtesy of Alitalia. To add another little dash of insult, we were only given 4 seats, (instead of the 5 purchased) from MXP-GVA, so the 14 month old had to sit on our lap anyway! GVA-MXP is only a 35 minute flight, but that is not the point. All this with no denied boarding compensation (working on that now).

Point is, avoid Alitalia.

I know this is a DL forum, all my flight numbers were DL numbers. If this keeps one set of parents off Alitalia, the effort was worth it.

hfly

BA is worse that this when it comes to infant seats. If you used one on BA you were lucky (I was able to do so once after fighting them on the issue), as the CAA doesn't really care what the FAA has to say, as neither do any other European carrier. As for the rest, it sounded pretty bad.

BearX220

IIRC, AZ also bans all electronic device use inflight -- no laptops, personal CDs, DVD players, GameBoys -- so entertaining kids on a longhaul becomes even more challenging. I would not fly AZ myself under any but the most pressing circumstance.

The line about the pilot not being allowed to fly the 14-month-old in his own seat even though you'd paid for it is rich -- is there any chance the crew were bull$%!Tting you because you were an American family? No air professional on earth would honestly claim your kid is safer on your lap than in a carseat.

Please do pursue compensation and let us know what happens.

Dovster

With all due respect to Air France, Alitalia is definitely the European weak sister of the SkyTeam alliance.

At present, it is much closer bankruptcy than Delta and with one day strikes seemingly more the rule than the exception, buying a ticket on Alitalia is always a bit of a gamble.

Having said that, I should admit that I fly Alitalia more often than any other airline. Partly that is because of a girlfriend in MXP and partly because I am addicted to aranciata San Pellegrino (dolce) which is not served on any other airline in the entire world.

I am also an unrepentant Italophile and tend to smile at Alitalia's idiosyncracies.

erik123

AFAIK- A 14 month old can sit in his own seat without a carseat - just not when the seatbelt sign is switched on. As for the one-way gripe - I would request a full one way fare for that sector as this is what you had a right to and were denied. Small claims court always works wonders for these types of claims.

indufan

That's the UIG, right?

Dovster

Yes, the lady in question is my Used Italian Girlfriend.

As an aside, I have always been bothered by Malpensa's name. After all, it means "Bad Thought".

As the airport is almost equidistant (at least in time) from downtown Milan and the Swiss resort town of Lugano, I think they should change the name to "Unified International Gateway".

This would also make life less confusing for me as my ticket would clearly state that I am flying from TLV to UIG.

fajimenez

I know this is making the topic go further, but I flew Aer Lingus from JFK-DUB-EDI last year and our 9 month old son couldn't sit in his FAA car seat during take off and landing. It didn't help matters much that it didn't fit very well in the bulkhead seat (some nice person moved on the trans-Atlantic portion).

Luckily someone who checked into the flight with luggage was not allowed to board (and they were pulling that luggage off) -- otherwise there would have been some nasty glares our way as we pleaded our case with junior FA's, senior FA's, purser, Gate agents, ETC....


We were lucky that we did have the bassinet on the way over and back.

On the DUB-EDI flight, we didn't even bother with the car seat and gate checked it.

JS

If the 14 month old child isn't too squirmy, he can sit in his own seat with just the seat belt.

mattgoolsby

Does anyone know if this policy is still in effect? If so, are there any other Skyteam Alliance members that have this crazy policy in place?

Helena Handbaskets

I'd like to ressurrect this thread here to re-ask mattgoolsby's question: Does anyone know if AZ still has and enforces such a policy?

I have a return from Rome later this year that starts with a DL codeshare on AZ from FCO-CDG and an Air France codeshare CDG-ATL. I'd like to use the car seat for my then-19-month-old on both of these flights, but even if AZ refuses, does anyone know if they'll at least let us gate-check the car seat so we can at least use it on AF across the ocean?

cpx

I believe they still have this policy. I dont have a first hand experience, but
you should be able to gate check the seat. (Checkin counter will probably
ask you to check the seat there.)

I believe there was a recent thread on this issue.

Gargoyle

Never had any problem using laptops on AZ. I also see gameboys, etc.
They don't allow things with lasers, like stand-alone cd/dvd players, and they don't allow printers. (I've never seen anyone using a printer on a flight).

JRF

Do you remember Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? The Children Catcher is European although I am not sure which Stage Coach line he worked for and who owns that Stage Coach Line now. I guess it could be the Italians?

GUWonder

Laptops aren't an issue unless the AZ FA wants to go looking for a CD/DVD player built into the laptop. (Then the line is: "that's been disabled". ) As you said it's devices that use a laser that AZ objects to. (I've seen printeres used on flights before, but that was like two or three rare times, closer to 5 years ago than as of late.)