Alitalia

I booked a return flight to Malta with Alitalia. As I have since found out, what Alitalia don't know about customer service is... anything, actually.

First, the outbound flight was cancelled due to a strike. That hasn't happened to me in years, but I guess it's one of those things. Alitalia's customer service team did this: nothing. My travel office were great and after an hour or two we found alternate outbound flights with BMI/Lufthansa. So apart from having to leave home at 5am to catch the flight, all was well.

On the return leg, the first leg of the flight was delayed (change at Milan Malpensa), but only by 15 minutes. Not too bad. The in-flight catering was the worst I've ever experienced, though.

So we landed at Malpensa and found the gate for the Heathrow leg. Flight time posted at the gate, passes with not a hint of explanation. No tannoy announcements. After about half an hour I asked the gate staff what was going on, they said it was delayed and they were trying to find another aircraft. They failed. An hour after the flight was due to leave, at 21:40 local time, we were told to go to "area 2". The staff promptly vanished, leaving us to work out that to get to area 2 you have to go through a gate marked "staff only".

Up came the bags - where next? No idea. And no staff to tell us. By now it was past 22:30, the airport was essentially shut.

By following other lost souls I found a queue for hotel and taxi transfers. After a 30 minute wait I reached the front, to be told I must first go to the check-in desk. So I went upstairs towards check-in, waited a lengthy period to be given a piece of paper, then went to the main check-in desks where the queue was moving at glacial pace. At around 23:45 I was finally issued a ticket for the following day's 07:40 flight - from Linate, over an hour away. Then back to the transfer desk.

The transfer desk is run by another company, not Alitalia, and was the only place where I got the impression that somebody gave a toss about us. The poor girl was run ragged, but she found us all places, got us on buses and off. Arrived at the hotel around 00:30, maybe later, and was told there was an 04:00 alarm call already booked. Needless to say there was no food, the restaurant having closed hours earlier.

I was woken at 04:00, got myself together and went downstairs, to find that there was no breakfast, not even cofee. Straight to the airport, where were met by Alitalia's charming customer service people. Or at least I assume we would have been, had such people existed, which they plainly don't. After a brief period of the blind leading the blind we found  aplace to queue, and under an hour later I was able to drop my bag and be told that they had cocked up my seat reservation from the night before.

So to the gate. Which was, of course, not manned. There was, however, a coffee machine. Er, no thanks. I had to go back past passport control to the cafe to get something to eat - one substandard inflight sandwich was all they had fed any of us since 17:40 the previous day, around 14 hours earlier.

I am now off to the gate again to see if they can get my bag and me safely to Heathrow. The experience of many of their past passengers indicates that the answer to this is "no". Stay tuned.