We arrived at Cagliari airport 2 and a half hours before departure. That was too early to check in for our flight and we had to wait half an hour before the check-in staff accepted us. Meanwhile, the scheduled departure time (19:25) was changed to an estimated 20:00. With only 45 minutes to change planes in FCO, this promised some trouble...
At 17:30 our group went to the 6 available Alitalia check-in desks, where all the staff collected and labelled our baggage (through to Brussels, with a bright orange label 'SHORT CONN' which was going to be useful) and distributed our boarding passes.
I asked for the usual window seat, and was surprised to get it for both flights (in Brussels the lady at the desk told me that all seats of the group had been pre-assigned and that she could not change).
After passing the controls (with the now usual beep due to my newly installed metal hip prosthesis), I bought the traditional Sardinian booze called 'Mirto' and settled in a seat for a rather long wait.
The incoming flight from Rome FCO arrived at 19:25, its due departure time from Cagliari. I thought it would be difficult to leave at 20:00 and was already planning for a night in Rome at the expense of Alitalia...
Flight: Alitalia AZ 1596 CAG-FCO (codeshared with Air France)
Date: 18 SEP 2011
Aircraft: Airbus A321 reg. EI-IXU
Seat: 31A (window seat behind the wing)
Scheduled/Effective Time of Departure: 19:25/20:15 (GMT + 2)
Scheduled/Effective Time of Arrival: 20:30/21:14 (GMT + 2)
Scheduled/Effective Duration of the flight: 1 hr 05 min / 0 hr 59 min
Boarding started at 19:52 and was completed at 20:13. Pushback at 20:15. Announcements in Italian and English. Service on board by three stewards with a 3-day beard (not allowed for SN staff, but very trendy in Italy) and one stewardess. The flight was full at 98%.
There was a slot for credit card on the back of each seat. I still wonder what this is for...
Again no meal service, but free non-alcoholic drinks accompanied by either salty or sweet cookies. I wanted to chose the delicious red orange juice, but this was not available anymore only after 5 rows being served, I thus setlled for a mango juice, which was also quite good, with salty cookies.
After a perfect landing, we stopped on the apron at 21:14, far away from the terminal, and had to wait a few minutes for two buses to pick us up and take us to the terminal. Time wa seeming VERY long, as our next flight was scheduled at 21:15.
But when the buses arrived at the terminal, a nice surprise: an Alitalia employee with a billboard "Brussels" was waiting for us and rushed us through the long corridors to Terminal D, gate 02, where our next flight was still waiting for us. 175 passengers were waiting for our group of 25. And for some older people in our group, it was a long walk.
Another Alitalia employee took similarly a few passengers to the Tel Aviv flight.
Flight: Alitalia AZ 164 FCO-BRU (codeshared with Air France)
Date : 18 SEP 2011
Aircraft: Airbus A321 reg. EI-IXO
Seat: 35A (window seat in the next to last row)
Scheduled/Effective Time of Departure: 21:15/21:48 (GMT + 2)
Scheduled/Effective Time of Arrival: 23:30/23:41 (GMT + 2)
Scheduled/Effective Duration of the flight: 2 hr 15 min / 1 hr 53 min
The load factor was 100%, both in C and in Y, with some people on the waiting list who could not board the plane.
The 2 steward and the 2 stewardesses served the same “meal” as in the previous flights, together with non-alcoholic drinks, beer or wine (at no charge). This time I selected a well-earned beer with the salty cookies. But we didn't have any real meal since lunch....
- Service on board of A321 AZ164 FCO-BRU
As a conclusion, good flights, despite the very late departure of the first one. Kudos for Alitalia for having well organised the very short transfer in Rome. But not exceptional flights, again because of the poor offer of food; only on the last flight was it possible to get beer and wine.
