Some thoughts on AZ 653: YYZ-MXP
 

Sunday 8/20
Air: Alitalia # 653 YYZ-MXP
Departure: (YYZ): August 20, 5:05 PM EDT (evening)
Arrival: (MXP): August 21, 7:25 AM CEST (morning)
Class: Business
We were digging for our paper tickets in front of the “F” desk where Alitalia is set up for check in and a nice agent directed us to the Magnifica class check in. There was no line and we were checked into our pre-assigned seats and had our toiletries bag tagged and checked in 5 minutes. We then headed for security, breezed through that and took the shuttle bus out to the satellite terminal where AZ departs from. All in all, we had spent possibly 20 minutes from check out at the Sheraton in airport to arrival at the satellite terminal. We were told we would have access to the Air Canada lounge but we were really hungry so we grabbed a sandwich and a salad from the only food establishment out there. It was actually pretty good, and since the AZ food is nothing to write home about I’d recommend getting some food like this before you board.
Boarding is mayhem, I noticed this on other trips within Italy, lines are a fluid concept to Italians. We had to bust our way through the chaos when they called for business class. Boarding the plane itself was a pleasant surprise. I mean I knew this was an older 767, with much older seats than the YYZ-FCO flight at the next gate, but I was expecting the horrible green cloth seats I had recently experienced on an AZ MD80. The 767 we were on has gray colored leather seats with gray cloth backs. The cabin looked better than expected and the seats were reasonably comfortable in the sitting position. The plane isn’t as beat up as some UA and AA flights I’ve been on recently. But overall, the seats rank below these other business class experiences I’ve had including: American J, Delta BizElite, old Malaysia Airlines Biz seats, old NW and KLM WBC seats. The closest thing in terms of recline and adjustability is the old Malaysia biz seats. The worst part is that the footrest is designed for someone much shorter than me, it wouldn’t extend far enough for me. My wife who is 5’2” thought the seats were fine, she slept over 4 hours and said it was fairly comfortable for her.
The service was pretty good for an airplane (at least 4 FA’s for the 25 seat Magnifica cabin), but the food was for the most part pretty mediocre. The dinner pasta dish was farfalle with tomato sauce, ok, the main courses were beef in red wine sauce and steam halibut. Neither looked all that good, I tried the beef and it was like tough potroast. The best part was the selection of wines and cheeses, and the Lemoncello. But I don’t expect much when it comes to airplane food, overall no better or worse than what NW serves up on its WBC flights.
There was a movie on as others have reported this is projected on a large screen in the front of the cabin. I slept instead of watching. The amenity kits were nice, especially since we had to check toothpaste, chapstick, etc down below. They also have nice ear plugs and eye shades. The blankets and pillows are among the poorest quality I've seen in business class.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, broiled tomatoes and Canadian bacon and mushrooms. Really not very good, but not inedible. There was a decent section of pastries and fresh fruit. Again, not much different here than the basic meals you find on NW or AA in business class.
Bottom line in terms of seat comfort, I probably would have been able to sleep a bit more in the newer seats on the YYZ-FCO flight, but these seats did the trick for us.
My tickets were reissued by AZ, so I wasn't expecting any problems getting mileage credited to NW, and sure enough the miles are in my account a few days later. We're in Italy for another few days and then off to LCA for another week of vacation. Watching the news today about Turkey I am happy we opted for a couple of days in Cairo instead of a visit to Turkey.

it would seem that way though I only have one not-100%-appropriate sample: 200% miles though tiket was cnfrimed D but flight was operated by an all-Y Eurocypria a/c.

If you might be interested to save a few bucks on your rental car. Try out

SIXTI

they have rental cars available for as low as 5 € plus an additional 7 € to get you full LDW.

I use them to get to my hotel in the suburbs of Rome.

Great tip! For the day (OK, the 3.5 hours) I'm interested in escaping the airport, SIXTI is asking for € 8.00 (plus another € 4 if I want a $0-deductible LDW). I'm trying to figure out if there's a catch here, but can't find one. Once I make the reservation, it's non-refundable, but I figure for $10 or so, it's worth the risk!
Did you reserve a Smart, and if so, did you actually get a Smart? € 8 is worth is just to leave the airport, and cruise in a Smart Car to have a nice breakfast in a nearby town!

The words "nice breakfast" and "Italy" don't really go together. Hotels do a reasonable job (with allowances for the stale/crusty bread rolls), but Italians are not really in to breakfast. However if your tastes run more towards a cappucino and a pastry, you will not be disappointed.
--
13F

Questions about lounges in YYZ
 

I am arriving to YYZ on NW at 10:30 AM. The AZ flight doesn't leave until 5 PM.

Can I get access to the KLM lounge in T3, or it is on the wrong side of customs?

What time does the AZ check-in open so I can get the AC lounge access in the infield terminal?

thanks

MXP-LCA-MXP-YYZ trip report
 

Here are some brief comments on the rest of our trip, bottom line is that these are two of the worst airlines I've had the pleasure of interacting with, but for the price paid we got a great cheap vacation.

Would we do it again? Probably not, with all the hassle of getting back to SEA from YYZ (see below about missed connection due to AZ delays) I'd rather go SEA-AMS and fork over the $$ and/or miles.

MXP-LCA- 8/30
We actually had our hotel concierge "re-confirm" our flights the day before and were told everything was A-OK. We arrived at the airport to see our flight listed as "Zurich/Larnaca", ok we thought, this should be interesting. That is an understatement. We get to checkin and are told that they have combined 2 flights (LCA-MXP and LCA-ZUR) into one and that this flight is over an hour late. They are dumping folks in MXP, picking us up and then dumping some folks in Zurich before we head to LCA. And by the way, this is an all Y flight, so you dont get business class seating/service nor can you carry on all that luggage. So we had to check in our bags (which thankfully didnt get lost), and after some demanding I was able to get a supervisor to give us an aisle and window seat with the middle blocked, or so I was told. We arrived at the gate and it was chaos, the folks on the plane heading to Zurich were standing around, and there was an announcement they would be let back on first to retake their seats. By the time we board, we're hearing that there are tons of seat assignment problems, it's clear they don't care and are just telling us to sit wherever we want. So much for a blocked row. Some of the Cypriots are yelling, the crew are looking back like this is normal operating procedure. So we get wedged in coach row with another person and it's off to Switzerland. To their credit they did turn the plane around fast, but at this point we've effectively wasted our whole day. Some new folks get on in Zurich and you guessed it, there are again problems with duplicate assignments. Expecting this (and the response of sit anywhere) we grabbed an exit row and sat aisle window with our bag on the middle seat. The entree was inedible, salad was ok, the only airline that has served worse entrees is EgyptAir. We finally arrived in LCA sometime after 9pm! Of course that made driving on the left (first time for me!) fun, I was hoping to do this in the evening light for the first time.

LCA-MXP 9/5
Nothing of note here, got to experience "business class" too. As others have written it isn't much to speak of. We were on the left side of the plane, there are two seats, with a "spacer" in the middle. Nothing great, but better than being crammed in coach.

MXP-YYZ 9/6
We arrive, check in quickly and spend a few minutes in the lounge, we're told everything is on time. We board, still told things are on time, we care as we have a 2.5 hour connection in YYZ. Seems like we had a different plane than YYZ-MXP, this one is much more torn and worn. The crew is rather unfriendly in a strange way, not mean, just not very engaging. After it's clear we're not taking off on time, I ask, no real answer. Finally about 45 minutes later the captain tells us we were waiting for ATC, then to offload some bags. Another 30 minutes and we finally push back, followed by a slow taxi and some more waiting. It's clear we're not going to make our 4:30pm connection in YYZ. Good wine and cheese selection, a passable chicken dish and some ok pasta appetizers. We watched a couple of movies, terrible entertainment "system" if the screen at the front of the cabin can be called that. Again, I think these seats are terrible for someone 6 feet tall or more, the foot rest is way too short. So I snoozed a bit but not as much as would have liked. I was actually uncomfortable by the end of the 8+ hours in this seat. We landed about an hour+ late but took forever to taxi to the gate. This combined with the whole bus xfer to immigration and painfully slow (but fairly short in legnth) immigration lines doomed us. We arrived at the NW checkin counter at 4:30. They were eager to help us, and even chuckled when we told them we missed the flight due to AZ delays. I guess they hear this lots. We were rebooked on the next flight (6:38pm) and even got upgraded, but we had an even later arrival home. Total transit time was rediculous- we left the Park Hyatt Milan at 7:30AM and arrived home in Seattle at 11:45PM-- nearly 24 hours from start to finish MXP-SEA. Ouch!

question regarding your travels: did you have to pay any fees for the YYZ-SEA flight that you missed because AZ was late? thanks!

Your mileage may vary, we made sure to drop my NWPlat card and my wife's NWGold card on the counter as we recounted how AZ had delayed us and then very politely asked if they would be able to help us get home that night. I've had good luck with this in the past with NW, but some airlines are pretty tight. The NW first agent who was helping us called over the station manager (I think his name was Rick) and he took over. He had to insert some notes into our PNR for accounting, he type in "AZ652 misconnect" and then noted that we were Plat and Gold. I think it helped that it was a Skyteam partner that misconnected us (and he mentioned that AZ is notorious for this). He had to do this accounting stuff to get us on the plane b/c there were only "Y" fares left for the second leg to Seattle. Because we were rebooked as Y fares we actually got upgraded on the first leg (in front of a few other Plats no less) and then we got one seat on the second leg to Seattle.
I was warned back a few pages in this thread that I might not make the 4:30PM NW connection, but we decided to take the chance anyway. It seems like we had about a 75% chance of making a 4:30 connection based on the daily arrivals for the last few weeks, but of course we would get the one day with a serious delay. I wouldn't book a connection before 5:30 unless you have status with the connecting airline as well as some experience getting rebooked at no cost.

Trip Pics (report coming soon)
 

I'm still working on my trip report, but I thought I'd post some of my trip pictures right away (to help those who have not yet taken this trip, as well as allow those who did already take it to relive it...)
Please add your comments to the album!

For the record, our outbound flight was on 9/2, return flight (FCO-YYZ) took place on 9/10/06.

(trip report will be inserted here).

YYZ-FCO-LCA-FCO-YYZ trip pictures:
http://bostonbali.shutterfly.com/act...0BcOGTZyzZsXHA

i don't know how much airline partnerships count for. i missed an AF flight from manchester because my jfk-man flight on DL was late and was offered...nothing! that is even through i am skyteam elite (DL). in fact, it seemed to me that AF and DL barely cooperated....

Recent LCA experience (late Sep)
 

Flew last week (9/24 - 9/28), on my first of two YYZ-LCA specials. Just a few things to add to earlier reports. This trip, I did the one night in LCA; on my next trip I stay for longer, and after this trip I am looking forward to it and glad I booked a non-MR trip.

Like fluegelwesen, I stayed the one night at Les Palmiers, in the center of the tourist district (The Larnaca location of Starbucks is right downstairs). A good price at 21 CYP, including breakfast. An American-sized room with two joined twin beds, and a balcony overlooking the street and the beach.

Dinner at Militzis, on the coastal road about 200 yards beyond Larnaca Fort, which marks the end of the touristy commercial strip. I picked it because it was crowded with what appeared to be a mix of locals and tourists, had open-air dining with a view of the water, and the food looked good. I was seated with a travel writer from Denmark who picked it for similar reasons. Very tasty, and well-priced: two appetizers, some feta, a giant spit of roasted meat, and a 66cl bottle of beer set me back less than 8 pounds.

Afterwards, watched some Champions League football at a couple of the tourist bars, met some tourists from Germany and Spain, and flirted with a cute bartender before crashing.

Taxi from the airport to Larnaca town was about five pounds -- someone really cheap who was up for a little adventure and some exercise could easily walk it in an hour or so -- after the first mile, it would all be along the coast. There is an information counter right at the exit to LCA that has maps of Larnaca, Cyprus, and probably anywhere else you need.

Nothing new to report on the flights -- the earlier descriptions do justice to the lounges, in-flight service, and visiting Rome on the way.

Well done. Militzis is well-known amongst Cypriots and famous for its "souvla" (i.e. spit-roasted meat). Next time try Varoshiotis for its fish meze (just walk a little further down the coast from Militzis, it's right on the water).

That's interesting - I actually did walk further down the coast to the next fishing-boat harbor while I was exploring and saw Varoshiotis, along with a couple of other fish meze places, but I wasn't quite sure what to make of them. Thanks for the tip -- I'll be sure to check it out on round 2.

Amerigo Vespucci
 

Happy to report that Amerigo Vespucci (the 767 I got on on 10/9/06) had the new C seats. Pretty darn good. My IFE didn't work b/c my power port didn't work. I could have hijacked off of my brother (next to me), but decided to sleep. One of seats (all electronic) ate my father's eyeglasses as they had fallen into the seat as he slept and when he awoke to look for them, he could not get them until he moved the seat, and when it did...crunch.

So, I'm not sure if this is a new development or old, but Amerigo Vespucci has new C seats.

I'm in IST now, hope to post a full LCA trip report shortly.