I used to fly a lot on Alitalia, about 30 years ago, between Africa and Europe, within Europe, and to and from South America, because I was friendly with someone in their office and I got free tickets whenever and wherever and as often as I wanted. Admittedly most of the flights were less than half full, but that's hardly an argument to justify giving free tickets.
The standard of service on board varied from abysmal to mediocre, although the food was usually very good. Considering how many beautiful stylish women there are in Italy, it always amazed me how many old dogs they used to find as cabin crew.
The planes were often tatty and dirty, and they used the horrible DC10s and DC8-63s (I think) on some routes and a very mixed fleet on short haul. They lost or damaged my luggage more times than I care to remember, and whenever I mentioned that I knew 'so and so' my claim was processed generously and without any discussion.
I remember one particularly atrocious and heavy landing at Nairobi where we bounced about 8 times, the overhead bins flew open, people were screaming, and I'm certainly no aviation engineer but I would have thought that some fairly through checks for damage would have been done. We were airborne again within 45 minutes so ......... however that's only speculation on my part but I was not very reassured over their safety.
Then there's their main hub airport, Fiumicino .......... what a badly designed dysfunctional badly run dump, in those days even CDG was better, in fact I think Sheremetyevo was better too.
If ever an airline deserved to be allowed to fail, it's that one, seems nothing has changed. It was jobs for the boys, old school tie network.