Philipat, I would tend to agree with you, however either the airline industry or AZ in particular doesn't. They believe that I should check in at Heathrow arrive in Linate, get myself and luggage to Malpensa, with no regard for bus time tables (its not like Heathrow-Gatwick, buses every few minutes, there can be as much as 5 hours between buses!!!!). I then HAVE to check in at Malpensa because I won't be given an onward ticket. If I miss check in, and, it will be closed if I don't arrive in time, even if they are informed I am in transit, I miss my flight and my right to another ticket because its my fault. (I wish someone can tell me why, if I have paid for a ticket from LHR-GRU why I have to pay for any part of the trip in between (ie the bus from LIN-MXP))
To say this is a ticket from one destination to another is a lie its four seperate tickets, however if I want to stop over in Milan for a few days I would be charged extra! Even though I have to clear security and immigration and am left on my own with no assitance from Alitalia to travel the 78 km across on of the busiest cities in Europe.
Eventually someone at AZ did tell me they had had this problem several times before!!!!!!!!
Of course they do all flights from London,Brussels,Frankfurt,Madrid, Barcelona,Paris and Amsterdam fly to
only Linate (no big cities there then!) and ALL long haul flights from Malpensa. With NO flights (let me be clear about this :- I cannot fly from any of the above cities to Malpensa with AZ). BA for example flies to both Linate and Malpensa so does KLM so does AF and probably others, but Alitalia does not.
In this thread I have spent time responding to people who attack Italy or Alitalia, attacks on Italy and its people are completly out of order and wrong. The situation at Alitalia however is a farce clearly it has been run by headless chickens, clearly the level of customer care is disgusting, and clearly the government uses it as its own personal taxi service so has no regard of what routes should actually be run. Using a horrible phrase from the UK there is 'no joined up thinking' in the company.
In my view its quite clear everyone on this thread who has attacked an aspect of AZ is correct, from the pilots attacking management to the ex-customers attacking staff, capitalists attacking unions, communists attacking shareholders and everything in between.
Alitalia is rotten to the core!
Should it be saved? Economically there is no arguement for it to be, there are some very good airlines out there if Alitalia goes is there anywhere in the world I won't be able to get to? No, Alitalia adds nothing to my ability to travel! So consequently if it disappears I lose nothing.
Arguements are not only about economics though, personally I believe every country should have a flag carrier, someone their President, PM (or Pope) should travel on, someone to evacuate survivors or captives etc. I know its sentimental clap trap but hey. Swiss Toni (sorry Silvio Berlusconi) got it right, people do feel comforted to see their own airline in a foreign country its always a link home, but then I also believe BA,Iberia Lufthansa even TAP etc, should never be owned by foreigners either.
The thing is Ryanair and such are effectively buses, and thats fine when I need to get somewhere or wanna get away for a quick break, but don't forget flying is wonderful, amazing, pilots are not managers they are supermen they fight nature and win everyday, lets all remember we are not supposed to be able to fly, everytime 'that' plane takes off I feel a buzz, I love airplane food, I love being in airports, when I want to go somewhere romantic or special I want to pay more and get a proper service. I don't want flying to stop feeling special.
At the moment Alitalia is nothing neither the bus nor the romance its just badly run, staffed by surly employees but worst of all no-one cares about the customer and we pay everyones wages. Company in trouble, workers strike! Oh come on in the UK we destroyed our manufactring industry by not understanding this fundamental point you strike when you can achieve something.
I don't want thousands and thousands to lose their jobs but Alitalia has to change in such a big way, so massively I am not sure it is possible, they are 20 years too late all the other legacy carriers have been through this and they have come out the other side much better. Lets see if Alitalia can, I am sure of one thing though this is the last chance, it really is.
As for me, well, my ticket has been changed free of charge I am flying first thing to linate getting a hire car doing a little shopping in Milan (the gf will be pleased then to Lake Como for dinner, drop the hire car/luggage trolley with a roof at Malpensa and get ready to be told our flight to Sao Paulo has been cancelled after all that due to crew shortages (because they wanna be at home on Christmas Day, maybe so do we????)
