Alitalia, time to close doors...

Alitali is the Italian airlines which is flying low altitude in the recent years and definitely is gonna crash if no one step up and launch a rescue mission. Any way the financial troubles of Alitalia is no my concern since I'm not a shareholder neither an employee , but I'm a passenger and I'll like to comment my last experience flying the Italian flag carrier.
my story started when I was planning a business trip to some European country . after checking the time table of different airlines running flights from Tripoli and taking into consideration the connection time In other airports I find out that Alitalia has the most convenient time to my schedule and therefore I make up my mind and picked them. I have tried to call Alitalia ticket office in Tripoli to arrange my booking but nobody ever answered the phone and this is normally an indication of poor customer service but I was kind of short in time so I decided to go to the ticketing office in Elfateh tower and get this thing done.

From the first moment you step into that office, you feel that something is wrong with those guys, for instance that old poor guy who is setting at the door providing the queue numbers, the guy has no idea of so ever what those numbers are for, to give you an idea the guy who came 30 minutes after me got a number before me and my number as will has nothing to do with my actual rank in the waiting queue. In any case the numbers was useless any way since the lady in green behind the booking desk was not bothering herself and she never used the number call switch. We were like 6 people waiting and so we arrange it between us who's first and who's the last. Fine just fine… according to this arrangement my rank was 4 , I spent 2 hours waiting to finally approach that gorgeous behind the desk.. if you are wondering how she manage to spend 2 hours serving only 3 people, well the answer is simple, she spent the majority of the time talking on her cellphon doing favors or maybe business with people she knows. And ohh man, I was boiling while I was waiting and every time her cellphone was ringing, every single nerve in me was shaking, but I managed to stay cool distracting myself by trying to think of something more delightful like the places I'm planning to visit. Finally it was my turn, I mean almost , when this cutie beauty girl came in and set for a second pretending that she is waiting for her turn and suddenly looked at the us ( me and the other 2 guys ) and said in her little voice, please I'm in a hurry, can I take your turn , oh man, this was the break point of my patience, without thinking for a second I found myself telling her, shut up, set and wait for your turn… there was nothing but silence in the room, everybody was staring at me. Ok I'm not a rude guy normally but that day I just had enough…. surprisingly, things start moving faster after that, the booking lady stop answering her phone and I got my booking done in 5 minutes…. I walked out with my tickets saying to myself this the last time I’ll ever fly this airline… I have to admit it I was stupid because after I saw how things was going in the ticket office I should expect the level of service Alitalia is providing, but I didn't realize the whole picture tell I was on board…

1st sector, Tripoli – Rome , our flight surprisingly was on time, quit early in the morning. I boarded with no so much trouble, at least this time the passport control guy didn't give me a hard time asking for the official vacation letter. The service on flight was less than ordinary, flight attendants behaving like soldiers in a milatry camp!!!. But who cares, I enjoy flying to much and usually I don’t care for what they are serving during the fly. I just spent the couple of hours wondering at the blow sky and the wight clouds.
- In Rome I have to catch a connection flight to Madrid, I waste some time doing some stuff and I arrived to the gate 10 minutes before departure. The girl their told me the flight is closed and she can't board me. I tried to convince her that the airplane is still at the gate,la bla bla la bla bla... . she picked the phone and tried to talk with some one , maybe the captain, but looks like the guy was in a bad mood and he refused my boarding. Well, since it was my fault arriving late, I just thank her and draged my self to the service desk to see the next flight they can put me on. The lovely lady told me she have a seat for me on flight departing after 3 hours. I didn't have another choices , so I accept it advising her to reroute my language.

- I said ok, I'll kill the time by moving around the airport ( that terminal). After like 10 minutes I figured out that Rome is a very boring airport and there's nothing to do. I decided to go to the business lounge to have some coffee, check my emails , do some internet surfing to kill the time.

- Well, the so called business lounge is one of the worst lounges I ever seen in my life. To give you an idea Tripoli airport business lounge is a like a 5 start compared to this one. I said what ever, all I need is a chair, some coffee, and a wifi. I ordered my coffee , I asked the girl at the receipting about the Internet, she said they have a wireless Internet in the lounge and its not free. I told her what ever, I'll pay for it. I spent 20 minutes tyring to discover the access point but all my efforts come to vain. Finally I give up , I went to the reception lady to inform her that there's no active access point available, simply she said it should be there but she don't know if its working or not !!!!. without saying a word I collected my stuff and decided to head to the smoking room where I spent the remaining 2 hours…. Ah, I did one attempt to kill the routine and I tried to buy some book to read from the book store. For my bad luck the majority of titles were in Italian and there was few ones in English but completely un interesting, so I give up trying and I find my way back to that little paradise called the smoking room…

- My suffering was over and finally my ride was boarding and ready to takeoff.

- I was so tired , so I just closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep. In fact I was sleeping till some ugly voice was walking me up , I opened my eyes , looked up, there was some one, should be a male flight attendant, he ask me , do you want something to eat??, I didn't like the tune of his voice, so I looked at him for a second before telling him, get lost…
- I was trying to get back to sleep again, but I felt that there something strange. The cabinet is very quit. I mean normally you hear people whispering, eating, whatever, but it was nothing put silence . I turned around slowly since I was in the first seat and guess what there was nobody around at all , I was the unique passenger in the cabinet. Oh my god. Now trust me, being alone in 40,000 feet is a pure feeling of loneliness…

- Around 3 clock after noon we landed at Madrid. Since Alitalia was famous of losing passenger baggage I was praying that may baggage arrived with me. Thank god, it did and looks like my bad luck was changing, my bag was the first to appear on the baggage belt..

- Definitely my luck was completely changing, as I just walked out of the airport I found my friend looking for me and in no time I was enjoying the fresh air of a Sunny Madrid after noon.
- I spent a very nice time in Spain. Maybe I'll talk about it in the future posts.
- Going back home was as stressful as my coming flight. Again my flight was early in the morning, I arrived early to the airport as usual to make sure that I'm coming on time to avoid to mess my flight. Unfortunately the guy working at the business check-in desk didn't show up that morning, or maybe he just came late like the people he is serving. I headed to the economy class queue where I waited for like 30 minutes tell I reached the desk. My flight was one hour delayed and of course this involved changing the bordering gate a couple of times so I was almost sure I'll mess my connection flight and this time I'll stuck in Milano for a while, but since I knew Milano it was a kind of relieving because Milano is a nice airport and you can kill the time easily there. Lucky me the flight from Milano to Tripoli was delayed as well so we made it on time.
- Back to Tripoli, things was not normal in the airport, the passport control box was empty we waited around 10 minutes till some one showed up . the baggage hall was messy with bags scattering every where and it turned out I arrived at the time when they put the new passports rules into force. Thank god nobody crushed the English page in my passport … :)

Aliatali, this is a free advice, travelling has changed allot and its no more on horses backs. what's going at the bottom of the pyramid is a reflection of what's going at the top.