With Alitalia operating in bankruptcy protection, I figured this might be my last shot to sample a longhaul flight on the carrier. Let’s hope not, though, because I actually had a very pleasant 13hr flight from Rome to Los Angeles.
Walking to Terminal 1 from the Hilton Rome Airport, I found the premium check-in area and was swiftly checked in for my flight by a courteous agent. She was dressed in a red uniform very similar to what FAs would wear onboard. I find Alitalia’s uniforms to be stunning and unique in a sea of drab blacks and blues.
I stopped by the pre-security Alitalia Lounge for a cappuccino before proceeding to security. USA bound flights have a special security line, which was a mess. While there was a special line for premium/business class passengers, it was closed. The lines that were open were a free-for-all. Still, it took only about 10 minutes to work my way through security.
Past security, I was stamped out of Italy and found a rather small Alitalia Lounge. Boarding time indicated 9:10am and so I was at the gate by 9am in order to position myself to board first.
Boarding did begin promptly at 9:10am.
Alitalia 620
Rome (FCO) – Los Angeles (LAX)
Wednesday, August 23
Depart: 10:10AM
Arrive: 2:15PM
Duration: 13hr,05min
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200
Seat: 3L (Business Class)
Onboard, FAs were still prepping and one held me (politely) at the door for about 30 seconds before welcoming me onboard. I was directed to my seat on the starboard side of the aircraft, 3L.
Alitalia Business Class Seats
Alitalia has staggered business class seating in a 1-2-1 configuration. The seat is similar to what you find on Iberia and select Etihad flights. On the 777, business class is 46 seats, including 10 in a mini-cabin behind the larger forward business class cabin. Choose A or L seats if you want the most privacy and best window views. Seats C and J are also technically window seats, but the shelf is on the window side as opposed to the aisle side.
The seat contains a USB plug, universal power port, headphone jack, snake reading light, and adjustable seat controls (including massage).
Alitalia offers excellent business class bedding including a plush blanket and pillow:
Alitalia Business Class Amenity Kits
FAs handed out Bvlgari amenity kits, which contained lip balm, face creme, hand creme, perfume, a dental kit, comb, eye shade, and ear plugs.
I made the mistake of trying to switch my kit with one on the open seat across the aisle from me…
> Read More: My Seatmate Goes Ballistic When I Touch His Amenity Kit
Alitalia Business Class Dining
Three menus were waiting on my seat: a food menu, wine list, and coffee menu. I was pleased to find the coffee menu and also excited for the chance to try a pasta course with lunch, something unique to Alitalia.
Here are the menus:
Prior to departure, I enjoyed glass of sparkling wine and a hot towel.
Although the menu indicates “all day dining”, meal service took place for everyone directly after takeoff.
First up, canapes with another glass of sparkling wine. Very delicious.
The table was laid for lunch, including a white tablecloth and high-quality cutlery wrapped in red ribbon. Since I ordered lamb for the main course, I opted for a delicious glass of Barbera D’Asti Docg red wine.
The first course looked odd, but tasted great. It was a thyme potato flan served with a fennel salad in pink sea salt. Very tasty.
Pasta came next. It was difficult to decide between the two choices, but I opted for an Agnolotti pasta (like a ravioli) in a rich meat sauce. It was incredible, but not even the highlight of the meal.
The highlight was the second course, a magnificent lamb loin with hazelnut curst. The picture does not do it justice. I asked for a green salad with it, which was served with a small bottle of balsamic vinaigrette.
The cheese course was not memorable, especially in presentation.
Fresh fruits were offered including pineapple, cantaloupe, kiwi, honeydew, and grapes.
Finally, the meal concluded with a “Bonet” chocolate cake and cappuccino.
Admit it: this meal is first class quality.
Mid-Flight Snack
10 hours is a long time to go between meals. About halfway through the flight I ordered a pizza and cappuccino. The pizza was a small round disc about four inches in circumference. It was a bit soggy, but a nice snack.
In between the two business class cabins was a self-serve drink station that contained only water and soft drinks.
Pre-Arrival Meal
90 minutes prior to landing, a second meal was served. It was not listed on the menu and was…odd…to put it frankly. The meal contained a warm rosemary roll with bread and cold cuts as well as a hot hash brown and bowl of fruit. Hash brown?
I polished off the plate in a few seconds…and was still very hungry.
So I asked one of the FAs if there was any lunches leftover from earlier in the flight. My request was obliged and I was offered a yellow perch fillet. It was delicious, though my lamb was much better.
Overall, the food was exceptional on Alitalia.
Alitalia Business Class Service
My Italian friends had warned me to expect a “union break” sometime in the middle of the flight and that did indeed occur. About four hours into the flight I was hungry and rang the FA call button (Alitalia does state dining is on-demand, after all). It went unanswered for 45 minutes. Finally, the break ended and a single FA reappeared, slowly working his way through the cabin to refresh beverages. Interestingly, the FAs were not just hiding in the business class galley during the break–they were gone.
But on the whole, service was excellent during the flight. FAs were friendly…they smiled and engaged. In what I consider the ultimately measure of good service, prior to landing I asked for a leftover dinner from the first meal service. If a FA was lazy or apathetic, the answer would have been a quick no. Instead, the FA was happy to accommodate my request. Maybe it was my charming smile, but I did not get the sense that FAs hated their jobs or were just going through the motions (like on Aerolineas Argentinas).
Alitalia Business Class IFE + Wi-Fi
I was pleased Alitalia had wi-fi onboard and it worked fairly well throughout the flight. It is not cheap, but I paid $20 for 200MB which at least allowed me to connect my iPhone and stay up-to-date on email and text messaging.
IFE was easy to use and contained a large library of movies, TV shows, games, and music. I watched a movie called Gifted (hoping my son would be equally gifted) then started an old Christopher Nolan movie called The Prestige.
My first set of noise-cancelling headphones was broken, but FAs provided me a second set (which were of a different brand than the first set).
The view outside also provided great IFE. I never recalled the water being so blue when leaving Rome in the past.
Alitalia Business Class Lavatory
The lavatory was clean, but lacked any amenities.
Remote Gate at LAX
We arrived about 30 minutes early at LAX, but waited nearly an hour at the far end of the airport (by the ocean) at a remote gate. This was the first time I’ve ever arrived at a remote gate (this was not even the satellite terminal but even further out). Finally busses showed up and we were allowed to exit the aircraft.
It was another 10 minute ride to get from the remote stand to the Tom Bradly International Terminal for passport control. This was a sad way to end the flight — I don’t know if Alitalia is being penalized for not paying its bills at LAX or just being cheap, but it certainly is embarrassing.
CONCLUSION
All things considered, Alitalia was tremendous. For a bankrupt carrier, I appreciated the excellent onboard catering, good bedding, warm service, and nice amenities like the Bvlgari kit and wi-fi. It’s anyones guess as to how long the carrier will survive, but don’t hesitate to fly Alitalia in the meantime.
The remote gate situation at LAX is sort of a lottery system. Every airline will take its turn out there when all other gates are full and has nothing to do with how much Alitalia is paying for gate space. It also depends on every other airline operating on time throughout the day which usually is blown apart by about 7am
Soooo many typos. Geez.
I didn’t notice many typos at all, but I don’t think this is a great response. Blogging is hard and readers are demanding pricks, but you also run a business and public disregard for a potential customer in front of other potential customers isn’t great for the optics.
Just my two cents, but ignoring rude comments is probably better for your brand than replying snarkily.
Additionally, well-written articles with proofreading show attention to detail. This is an integral aspect of the award service you provide, and it wouldn’t be hard to extrapolate your attitude from blogging to that service… I know it is a factor I consider, anyway.
Thank you and good review.
Corrected. Thank you.
Great review Matthew. Thanks very much for the detailed descriptions and the excellent photos.
Nicely detailed summary of your BC flight experience! Makes me want to go back. I would love to see you do a Roma Airport blog. Happy Trails! Thanks.
That’s some impressive food….. I’ll have to break my Air France streak and give it a try if they’re still around.
Matthew –
Nice TR.
I think your pre-arrival snack was the Piedmontese Tasting Board that’s described on the lower left page off the menu, and the “hash brown” was the rice omelette.
Your report has inspired me to take the family out for Italian food tomorrow 🙂
What’s award availability like on the route? What’s the best program to use? Apologies if you covered in an earlier post.
Sam, good question. I used 47K Alitalia miles (80K r/t). Flying Blue charges 62.5K one-way and Delta charges 85K one-way.
Award space is poor. Very poor.
We flew AZ MIA-FCO and again FCO-MIA legs in 2013 to Stockholm and returned from Moscow on a DL award with Open Jaw and stopover and AF/KLM segments in it for the whole itinerary but the TATL was on AZ. I cannot remember how much DL charged, but certainly was much lower than now.
Availability was very very poor. We took the only 2 seats available on the outbound in July and the 2 of the only 3 seats available on the inbound in August. We had to go on a longer trip so to fit the dates with availability but since we had time so not a big issue.
The cabin at that time was in gray color and quite utilitarian feel. I cannot recall whether the seat was with cloth or leather upholstery.
Same Bulgari contents in the amenity kits but differently designed bags on each direction. Though both were quite large, boxy style soft bags, outbound in brown without partition inside with very edgy boxy design. Inbound the amenity changed in design and was in grey with a partition inside, and with round edge. Both were quite large in size and the Bulgari bottles also in decent sizes. Looks like they have cut down the size of Bulgari bottles. Can’t blame them.
Foods and the FAs were the high light of the flights. Their foods easily beat any CX F foods we have had and we have had quite a few to compare. At that time the meals were served with a cart with 2 FAs, and they plated the pasta or salad as you chose. Their pasta dishes were GREAT. So as the wines.
Sad to see AZ has long been struggling financially. Good think you were able to use your AZ miles before the inevitable bankruptcy. Just look at what happened to AB…
I work for alitalia (ground staff flight manager) I’m glad to read such a good review!
about financial proof Alitalia unfortunately politics (real politic not just the one of management) used alitalia in the last decades as their own tank to put the friend of the friend or just abuse of it as “tea party wallet”!
that said is really unknown what will happen to our airline but don’t think that “the tragedy” is inevitable.. 😉
Thank you for such a detailed review. I’ve got my first flight in J on AZ in January and details are important- so I am grateful to you for such a thorough description of what sounds like a pretty good experience!
Thanks for your comment. I hope you have a wonderful flight!
Actually i had a very very different experience with alitalia ! I paid for business class seats and when i got on board it was totally terrible! Such a disappointment! It was an old aircraft A320 industire airbus that hasn’t business class section ! It was for 30 years ago ! No monitor, no different type of seat !very very damaged plane ! I cried in whole route to Rome from Tehran! I am looking forward to claiming and don’t know how yet ! I don’t know how IATA let a company to steal from poeple like alitalia !
Farzaneh, sorry to hear your experience wasn’t the same. To set expectations, although it’s a long-ish flight, Rome to Tehran at +/- 4h30 is classified by AZ (and most airlines, to be fair) as a mid-haul destination – so the larger aircraft like A330 and B777 are not used on these routes. I’ve just checked and some carriers (LH, TK) operate widebody planes to IKA, but others (OS, SU and of course AZ) do not.
If you want to have the full long-haul business class experience, it pays to pick your airline and aircraft very carefully – and it may mean taking a connecting flight, but that can be worth it, it depends on your own needs.
The AZ A320 fleet is around 16/17 years old and the business class section, in common with most short-haul aircraft in Europe, is not equipped with recliner or flat-bed seats, or in-flight entertainment. Rather, the business class section typically has the middle (B and E) seats blocked to give you a little more personal space, a small amount of extra legroom (although this depends on the airline) and a differentiated cabin and service [dedicated crew, better meals and drinks].
So I don’t think you’ll be able to make a claim, I’m afraid; if you booked and paid for a seat in “business class” and were seated at the front of the plane, and received the service that Alitalia describe as their medium-haul business class offering (see https://www.alitalia.com/en_gb/fly-alitalia/travel-classes/business-medium-haul.html) then you got what you paid for. Sorry if it didn’t meet your expectations.
Alitalia used A330 on this route but since the iranian agreement is about to break up again, i suppose, they started to fly with A320
Great Article Matthew. We are traveling in Sept from LA to Rome for our honeymoon. We are splurging for business class seats. If it were you would you fly Alitalia or would you go British Airways? Just want the flight to be great.
Thanks.
I thought Alitalia was much better than British Airways.
Congrats on your upcoming wedding.
Thanks- one other question. Given their bankrupt status, would you roll the dice for a September flight or would you go with another carrier? as not to possibly lose your money?
I would roll the dice. I don’t think the Italian government will ever let it die.
Hi Matthew,
How can I maximize using my Amex points to secure business class seats? Planning on traveling LAX to FCO and then CDG to LAX in October.
Thanks!
Ryan James
Hi Ryan, how many AMEX points do you have?
200,000 Amex points. Thanks.
Check for space using ExpertFlyer, then transfer to Alitalia from AMEX Membership Rewards.