27 reviews
I one of these people that just love Italy and this time I am going to take you to… Sardenia!
We spent a beautiful and sunny week in Cagliariin the south of the Island.
Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 149
Status earned: 5XP
As we have been flying more often Air France and KLM, we trend to choose a SKyteam alliance over others, especially over low-cost airlines as the difference sometimes is minimum.
We booked our tickets online and the bookings were immediately available on the Alitalia App.
The APP has a fairly basic level of functionalities but is well designed and works fast. You can see your itinary, know your seats and luggage allowance at a glance, and of course download your boarding pass. The boarding pass is just a scan of a text written in old police, with no graphic design elements at all.
We arrived at this quaint and easy airport that is London City (LCY). The airport is organised in a single buiding terminal, hosting only small aircrafts like BAE140 and Embraers jets, hence quick turn around times.
There was barely anyone at the checkin counter so we headed directly there. The gentleman was efficient and professional, the whole process lasted about 5 min. We chose the basic tarif but paid online for checkin luggage.
Going through security was extremly fast, proably the fatest in the UK.
The airport isn't new, and some of its area need a good amount of refurbishment but all in all very functional and clean.
We took a seat facing our gate, the plane was there already.
The announces for boarding were made in both English and Italian, and the boarding happened with first the Skyteam elite members and business class ticket holders (and so we took advantage of it) before the remaining passengers, even though for such a small aircraft there isn't really luch point.
Our bird today was an embraer 190.
Aircraft: Embraer E190LR
Registration: EI-RND
Engines: 2x CFM34
Age: 7 Years
Observation: in the skyteam livery
Once passed the boarding counter, you walk down the stairs and litteraly arrive in front of the plane.
the avgeek bit
Alitalia CityLiner is the regional airline of Alitalia, before known as Alitalia Express. The name changed when Alitalia bought competitor AirOne including its regional point to point subsidary. Today the regional branch of Alitalia is ensuring short flights like these one but also flights to some selected European destinations like London City. The airline has 15 E170s and 5 e190s aircrafts.
The seats were clean and confortable, equiped with thick armrest and adjustable pillows and the pitch felt quite generous.
The crew was very nice and gave us a really warm welcome. After push back we had the regular announce by the captain the safety procedures explained in the old fashion way by the crew.
We were taxiing for a short time up until the end of the runway, made a U turn there and took off directly after towards west, above Canary Wharf Business centre.
After take off and the seat belt switched off passed 10,000 feet, the crew quickly started their on board complimentary service and i chose a very strong and good italian coffee, together with some snack.
There was no IFE on this plane, like the rest of the Alitalia Medium haul fleet.
Alitalia magasine was offering a fair amount of travel ideas, some good tips in Italy
And a corporate section of the airline.
The flight seemed a bit long in the end to reach Milan and we started our short descent just about 20 min before landing.
Approaching Milano Linate we flew over the beautiful alps.
The landing at the airport was smooth and taxiing very short as it is a single runway airport.
Milano Linate has just 5 gates at the terminal building equipped with jetways, the rest of the gates are actually parking spaces; where a bus takes you to the terminal building.
Milano Linate was meant to close once Milano Malpensa opened but that doesn't seem to be the case anymor, as there is a constant growth and as most of Alitalia flights and fellow Skyteam members are located at this airport.
My AZ mile miglia card… From the times I didn't know you could transfer all of your skyteam miles into one account!
In conclusion a nice flight with Alitalia, good value for money. The app is a bit basic, the planes are ageing slowly but surely, however, and despite the difficulties, Alitalia still offers and good solid service.
4 Comments
LCY really allows great close up views of aircrafts, makes up for the older building somehow :-)
You'll have to be quick they just operate one A318 left!
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