Alitalia

In all these years of going back and forth between London and Rome, I have almost always flown Alitalia. Rather than a matter of patrotism, I used to 'fly the flag' as they are/were always cheaper than British Airways. So over this time I think that I kind of got used to their average (at best) service, consisting of frequent delays, the more than occasional cancellations, the general absence of anything resembling that abstract concept called 'customer care'. Hopefully Alitalia will excuse me for using their name in the same paragraph as these two dreaded words, I didn't mean to cause any confusion.

After Alitalia's change of ownership in late 2008 - Air France-KLM now owns 25%, with the rest held by a group of 25 Italian investors called Italian Air Company - I was not very hopeful with regard the general improvement of the service, which in all fairness was only marginally better than Easyjet's, just to mention one name.

Now, almost 6 months after the takeover, I am 100% sure that my pessimism was entirely justified. The new Alitalia's penny-pinching is frankly rather appalling.
Here are a few examples: 1) they have totally changed the rules of their frequent flyer scheme ('Millemiglia'), whereby now you accrue much fewer airmiles (per journey) than before; this obviously means that fewer and fewer passengers may have access to Alitalia airport lounges and other so-called benefits; 2) on short-haul flights, the meal is now a distant memory; some passengers even swear that it never existed. Now it is a snack consisting of either a packet of 4 miniscule biscuits or a packet of peanuts. Needless to say, you can't have both (don't be greedy!!!). And don't have the audacity of ask for more than one drink, if you don't want to be the first person to experience that looks CAN actually kill.

These are only some of the grievances that Alitalia's passengers now have to put up with, as the old problems (poor time-keeping etc...) are still there, just like an old mantlepiece that no-one likes but has been there for so long that it would be a shame to get rid of. Alitalia employees have little reason to cheer either as the new management's not-so-hidden motto during the takeover negotiations was "we only want the best employees at the lowest cost".
Hhhhhhmmmm...... in this case, my new approach is going to be "I only want the best airline at the lowest price" - something tells me that Alitalia is going to lose my custom on both counts.