I’d love to hear from someone who flies with them.
Air Italy will be acquiring a lot of long-haul planes in the next two years, thanks to the infusion of cash from Qatar Air in exchange for their 49% ownership interest. They intend to expand aggressively, whether or not Alitalia survives the current bankruptcy. One rumor is that they will join the Oneworld alliance.
I’m hoping they add a nonstop from Logan or, even better, TF Green here in Rhode Island. (Suddenly, there are now several international options from Green.). We did well and enjoyed our Alitalia flights, but it has not been a great option for several years. We were able to use AMEX membership rewards several times, but not recently, to fly business on Alitalia for 80,000 points and modest fees - better than just about any other option.
It was a pain. You had to call and reserve the seats. Some agents were not very helpful about searching alternate dates. Then, you went to AMEX to transfer the points, the easy part. Finally, you had to call Alitalia again and hoped they had received and processed them within the time limit for the transfer.
Several years ago Alitalia business award availability stopped showing up on Expert Flyer, making this even harder. They also do not fly in and out of Boston from November through some time in March, I think. Worse, their current rewards program has new rates - 70,000 miles one way for business class. Even if it weren’t for the uncertainty regarding the bankruptcy that is just the last straw.
Our last two trips to Italia were on Swiss, via Zurich, booked on Air Canada/Aeroplan since you can’t transfer points directly from AMEX to Swiss. We are doing the same for our October trip.
So, that is the long winded reason I’m hoping for another option from Air Italy.