The nightmare of Alitalia
A business person wishes to fly from Bangkok to Prague via Rome using Alitalia. What ensues is Dantesque. We'll divide up our post with three excerpts from the nightmare.
Part I: "The ticket was purchased in Alitalia office in Bangkok (Silom Street). The staff (A young lady in pink jump suit and sneakers looking like someone preparing for jogging) was incapable of issuing a simple one way ticket BKK-FCO-PRG (Bangkok to Prague via Rome) for more than 2 hours. I was mad but actually more fascinated than mad."
That Italy, a land dependent on tourism and trade, has let its national carrier sink to the point where it has become the laughing stock of the aviation industry is a scandal. Perhaps this is the kind of thing that happens in a country that has not one, but two Communist parties. And both (Comunisti Italiani and Rifondazione Comunista) are in government!
Part II: "The lady on the reservation computer had absolutely NO IDEA about reservation codes, procedures and it did take her from 16:00 till 17:50 to type all codes manually, checking them and rechecking. In total as said three people handled the situation for 2 hours and the result was still unsuccessful as the ticket was not printed and I had to wait another day for it. The sweet lady lied and said that the printer did not work however the reality was more than evident that the PC refused to print the ticket due to errors."
To be fair, though, every Italian government that has preceded Prodi's coalition bears responsibility for the mess. And it is a mess. Alitalia has a market value of €1.1 billion and about €1.2 billion of debt. It loses more than €1 million a day and its powerful unions are frequently on strike.
Part III:"I am a manager in Thailand and I realize the work 'output' of Thai staff but what I have witnessed is sheer ridiculous and I cannot even start to imagine what would they do if they had to book and take care of a whole flight for AZ if the airline sent its own metal. Extreme low productivity and non existing time management. Alitalia offers flights to Bangkok however codeshares with China Airlines and using the capacity on their planes to fly between Rome and Bangkok."
The result of this, and many other humiliations, is an air rage blog dedicated to the horrors of Alitalia. More of the same here, here and here. Questions: (1) How did Italy, which has such a fantastic "brand" name all over the world, allow this to happen? (2) And what sleight of hand will the EU employ to greenlight a bailout of Alitalia?
