In the cold dark depths of a British February I decided I needed to find some spring warmth and sunshine in Southern Europe. I was torn between returning to Marbella where I often went in my early ’20s, and Sicily.  I thought the latter would be warmer (as it’s slightly further south), plus seeing Mount Etna was on my bucket list, so I looked for flights and hotels.  Outside the summer months there are surprisingly few direct flights to European ‘holiday destinations’, so I settled on a flight via Rome with Italy’s new national airline, ITA Airways (pronounced eeta) which has replaced the now defunct Alitalia.  The business class fare of £478 for two was pretty attractive (nearly £200 cheaper than I paid to go to Belfast on BA a fortnight earlier!) for the flight from Heathrow (“LHR”) to Catania (“CTA”) via Rome (“FCO”).  Sicily has two International airports; one near the capital Palermo in the west, but Catania on the east coast is right next to Etna, Europe’s most active and second largest volcano.  It’s always bubbling and smoking but its latest major eruption was in February 2022.

ITA operates from Terminal 2 at LHR and we arrived to check in well in time for our 16:55 flight AZ207.  Even though Mr A had scrupulously collated all of the required Covid certification paperwork and the online passenger locator form, we still had to fill out a paper locator form before we were allowed to go to the check in desk.  Because of a short queue at the business class desk we were invited to use one for economy class.  Not a problem per se, but our check in agent didn’t seem to know much about processing business class pax. I needed to remind her to put ‘priority’ tags on our bags and when I asked where their business class lounge was she had to ask her colleagues before telling me “ITA doesn’t have a lounge”.  And with no other Skyteam alliance airlines operating out of Terminal 2 they didn’t have the opportunity to share lounge access with another partner airline.  But fortunately we were able to use the Plaza Premium lounge thanks to one of the benefits of my platinum American Express Card.

The Plaza Premium lounge is windowless, of moderate size and comfort and offers buffet dining and a manned bar. I should say “well manned bar” because the server spent a great deal of time and effort to make me a Bloody Mary with all of the elements I’d expect in a top cocktail bar (down to the celery salt).  However no sparkling wine was available to pax.  The lounge had an asian feel to its design, but overall I found it a bit dull in terms of lighting, but I accept some might like low level lighting if they’re in transit between long flights.

The hot food at the buffet left an unpleasant aroma of stale chilli con carne in the air throughout the whole lounge, so I didn’t go near the hot food, but I grabbed what turned out to be some rather nice sandwiches – of prawn in Marie Rose sauce and of onion bhaji.

A wheelchair arrived to take me to the boarding gate, I thought rather early.  So my time in the lounge was cut short so that I could wait 15 minutes on a hard seat at the gate, before we were called forward to board.  I’d already learned from Flightradar24.com that our flight AZ207 was being operated by an airbus A320 in ITA’s stunning new livery of an all metallic electric blue fuselage and a thin Italian flag running up the rear of the tail.  ITA took on most of Alitalia’s (ageing) fleet, but it will take them a while to repaint them all.  Oddly, many of those aircraft are registered in Ireland and have Irish (EI-), not Italian (I-) registrations. And they’re still using the old Alitalia “AZ” flight numbers.

We boarded the 12 year old Airbus, registered EI-DTL at 16:23, wearing FFP2 face masks, as required by Italian law, but we were amazed at how many passengers had been allowed through the boarding gate check without one. The cabin crew kept having to tell pax to stop outside the plane and put one on, or go back to the terminal to buy one!

Our “bulkhead” row 1 seats were laid out with the the centre seat fold down tray giving extra space to business class pax, but we hadn’t expected our ‘bulkhead’ to be a window, so we could keep any eye on the cabin crew (and vice versa).  The antimacassars (head rest covers) bore ITA branding, but old Alitalia branding was still used elsewhere and the crew all wore Alitalia uniforms.

The boarding of just 79 pax (less than half the capacity) was completed by 16:40 and doors closed at 16:47, some 8 minutes ahead of schedule.   At that point we were offered a pre-departure drink of only water or OJ.  We pushed back from stand at 16:52 and took off from runway 09R at 17:05.

After take-off we were offered drinks from the bar: they didn’t have Champagne, but they did have “Spumante”, what a Brit would call Prosecco, served with a bag of horrible wheat-based snacks.

The only choice for dinner was ‘take it or leave it’, but it was appropriately Italian and reasonably tasty; an aubergine lasagne served with a green salad and a tiramisu cake (plus dry bread which I didn’t touch).  Unusually we had the exact same meal on our return flight to LHR. Maybe ITA is cost saving already?  After this dinner I had a good strong coffee and the crew offered Limoncello or Grappa -again typically Italian.  I tried the former and it was like toilet cleaner. Overall I rated this flight as better than British Airways, at 7/10

Unlike on most airlines the captain didn’t announce the “top of descent” or the expected time of arrival at FCO, but as it turned out we landed at 20:05 and we were on stand at 20:10, some 25 minutes ahead of schedule.  It was only on disembarkation that I noticed the famous football coach Claudio Ranieri was in our cabin (I nor anyone else asked him for a selfie).  A wheelchair man was there to take us through immigration and onwards to the business class lounge, which was branded in ITA colours.

The ITA lounge was pretty quiet at this time of the evening, it was fully enclosed, with no windows. It had plenty of tables and chairs for dining, but very few comfy chairs for lounging.  Light, cold food was served on request from a cordoned-off buffet, and there was a manned bar.

A wheelchair man came to take us to our connecting flight to CTA, AZ1724, operated by a 13 year old Alitalia-liveried Airbus A320 registered EI-DSX.  Once again I was in seat 1A after boarding at 21:20. This was a busier flight than the last one, but doors closed at 21:28 (12 minutes ahead of schedule), we pushed back at 21:34 and we took off from runway 07 at 21:42.  At first we thought everything looked the same as on the flight to FCO, but we soon realised there are differences with domestic flights.  No pre-departure drink, and after take-off Spumante was the only alcoholic drink on board!  And there was no food.  But it was only a short flight and we landed at CTA at 22:35 and were on stand at 22:40, 20 minutes early.

Overall a reasonable experience. OK the lack of a lounge at LHR was disappointing and the FCO-CTA service didn’t really count as business class, but both my flights landed early and the fare at £470 for two returns was pretty good.

The return flights 4 days later were less impressive.  We were booked on fight AZ1724, departing CTA at 11:10. After checking in my wheelchair assistance came for me promptly. He took me through security, up one level in a lift and pushed me straight to the gate right in front of us.  I said I wanted to go to the business class lounge, but the assistant didn’t speak English;  I saw signs to a “sala VIP” and asked to be taken there. The man was clearly not happy and as he pushed me he was on his phone complaining to someone that I wanted to go to the lounge, and that I didn’t speak Italian (I don’t speak it but I can vaguely understand it). I didn’t feel at all comfortable.

When we got to the lounge I realised it wasn’t an ITA lounge, but through my Priority Pass card Mr A and I were able to enter.  It was unbelievably small, with seating limited to about 8 pax!  It had a very small snacks and drinks help-yourself counter, where I got a coffee in a paper cup, but they didn’t even have any stirrers for my beverage.  The one good thing was that we had windows with views of the apron and runway.

I made a visit to the disabled toilets and was amazed at the poorly thought out layout: the toilet seat rose automatically if one wasn’t sitting on it and the toilet paper roll was more than 1m behind my left arm.  There’s no way a person with worse mobility than me could manage that with any kind of ease or dignity!  On top of that the door didn’t lock properly and I was rudely interrupted by someone trying to get in, and the hand dryer didn’t work.

When I got back to the lounge (the toilets are outside) a lady was there to take me to the gate. I hadn’t finished my coffee and the departures board hadn’t even shown our gate yet!  So I insisted on being allowed to relax and finish my coffee until the gate had been announced.  Once at the gate I had to wait 10 minutes before boarding started.  I really had the impression that the wheelchair assistants viewed us as packages to be moved around, rather than people looking for help.

When I booked my flights and seats, the front row wasn’t available, so we got seats in row 2.  But when we boarded at 10:45 I found I could not physically get into my seat 2F because the seat pitch was so small. Luckily row 1 in front wasn’t occupied and the cabin crew let us sit there, with much better legroom.

The aircraft was 13 years old and painted in the colours of Air One, a former low cost subsidiary of Alitalia. And low cost carriers have very short seat pitches, hence the difficulty for a walking stick user to access the window seats. I would anticipate this problem if I were booking a low cost carrier flight (and avoided it), but I was flying ‘full service’ business class, not Ryanair!

Doors closed 5 minutes early at 11:05, we pushed back at 11:09 and took off from runway 08 at 11:20.  Then the ‘fun’ began: the cabin and flight crews didn’t speak very good English and mumbled through their safety briefings at rapid speed. It was easier for me to understand their Italian announcements.  No food whatsoever was served and they didn’t serve alcohol “before 12:00”. So all I had, as a business class pax was a water and an undrinkable cup of coffee, whitened with powdered milk.  A dreadful business class experience! 1/10

We landed at FCO on runway 16L at 12:18 and were on stand at 12:27 (three minutes early).  A wheelchair man was on the airbridge waiting for me and he pushed us through passport and security controls, then on a to transit train to take us to a different terminal.  Then, just 100m short of the ITA lounge he just stopped and walked off!  So I walked to the lounge and gave some ‘feedback’ to the ITA staff there.  Within minutes they had summoned two Supervisors to talk to me and apologise for the way the wheelchair staff at CTA and FCO had treated me.  They were also surprised that we didn’t get anything to eat on that morning’s flight from CTA and offered to escalate the matter.

I then had a smooth wheelchair ride to the gate, where the two Supervisors were keen to fuss over me and show me much better Italian care and respect.

Flight AZ204 to LHR was being operated by a 12 years old Airbus A320, registered EI-DTE in ITA’s stunning new livery. We boarded at 13:46 and on this flight we were offered Spumante before take-off. Doors closed 5 minutes early at 14:03, we pushed back at 14:06 and took off from runway 05 at 14:15.  After take-off I asked for a Bloody Mary, but they couldn’t give me one because they didn’t have any vodka on board. Odd. As previously noted, our lunch was exactly the same as our dinner out of LHR earlier in the week.  And after lunch I chose the Grappa as my digestive.  It was roughly a quadruple serving and very strong; luckily I wasn’t driving!

At 15:20 we landed on LHR’s runway 09L after an approach over Berkshire, and we were on stand in Terminal 2 at 15:30, half an hour ahead of schedule.

Flying with ITA was ‘interesting’. They still need tome to repaint their planes and get their crews into new uniforms and they should mention on their website that Business class on domestic services is very different international services.  It would be a good idea to have a corporate training scheme for all staff, to encourage them out of their Alitalia ways, and deliver a more consistent service.  And of it wants to successfully compete with other full service airlines it needs to closely examine its business class product, from airport lounges to seating, food and beverages.  But I do like their low fares as they try to establish market share!

The very next day ITA phoned me about the feedback I’d given at FCO and gave me an £85 (transferable) voucher for future travel.  Such prompt reaction to a customer complaint is almost unheard of these days, and for that and the low fare I’ll give an overall score of 7/10

I wish ITA well in creating an airline which Italy can be proud of.