Review of Air Dolomiti flight Firenze Frankfurt in Economy

Airline Air Dolomiti
Flight EN8855
Class Economy
Seat 6F
Aircraft Embraer E-195
Flight time 01:19
Take-off 28 Aug 21, 13:54
Arrival at 28 Aug 21, 15:13
EN   #38 out of 96 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 50 reviews
Manbou
By 845
Published on 2nd September 2021

Hi there. I'm glad you found the time (and interest) to click on this particular flight report of my trip back home from Florence to Frankfurt. But reader be warned: if you're enjoying a good mood now and you want to keep it, better not read any further. Because what could have been the final piece of a really great holiday in Italy ended up being a real downer. From what I heard and read from other travelers, I had high expectations of Air Dolomiti, and they managed to destroy each and every bit of those with this flight. How they've done it? Well, if you're really that adamant about finding out, let's go and start where it all began…


How to read the verdict: Not everything was horrible, but I decided I can't give EN (and FRA airport) more points for what their service than I gave to them. For what I actually think about the categories, please kindly consult the review itself and the comment to the (numerical) verdict.


Firenze Peretola Airport & Getting there


As my hotel was pretty close to the old town, it was just a short walk to Santa Maria Novella station (in the background). But to get to the airport, it is more advisable to start your journey from Piazza della Unitá, just across the street, where the tram T2 to the airport departs. On most times, it departs about every 10 minutes and, taking 20 minutes to the airport, costs only 1,50€ for each person one way. A fair price for a very convenient service, if you ask me.


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This is already where things started to go bad slightly. No, I'm not talking about the body temperature check at the entrance or the Green Pass (Covid certificate) check during check-in. You see, I've already checked-in that morning even though it wasn't really necessary, as I had my seat reserved in advance.* I expected to just drop my baggage and be off through the security check, when I saw this… 

*  As to the seat reservation, and to be fair to Air Dolomiti (EN): I had to rebook the flight back. Other than what I am used from the LH hotline (1,5 hours+ waiting times even if you succeeded to get someone on the phone), the EN hotline was very user-friendly. I only had to wait 10 minutes until I was connected to a very friendly employee who sorted out my things in a quick and efficient manner. If you happen to fly Air Dolomiti, even if booked through Lufthansa, always try their hotline first…


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And, to be sure, the whole airport looked like this. Yes, aesthetically it's not especially pleasing, but there were people everywhere in humongous waiting lines. Here another example from Vueling on the other side from where I was standing.


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I have no idea what the airport people could have thinking. Something like: "Yeah, we have 2501924 passengers today? I'm sure it'll be fine if we open just one counter. Wil Maria be fine working there alone, Giovanni?" "I'm sure she will, Francesco. Let's have some aperitivo."
Yes, there was only one poor person working when I got there, on a counter for four airlines (Lufthansa, Air Dolomiti, Swiss, Austrian) when I arrived. With the line you saw above. After a while, though, more airport employees began to appear, and approximately half an hour after I arrived, four counters in total were open, including one for Business Class. Still, not a very good start.

To make matters worse, behind me in the line was a jacka** (excuse my French) who obviously thought that sniffing on the back of my head would make the line move faster. Also, he tried to cut the line twice, which I could only prevent by subtly shoving my suitcase where he wanted to go. Right before I wanted to make him aware of that and the stickers on the ground mandating the minimum distance between travelers, he suddenly decided that my shampoo wasn't to his taste. Instead, he settled on parking his luggage right next to my feet - the yellowish green suitcase is mine, and I decided to keep a close eye on it, just in case… Bottom line: people, don't be that guy! 


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(Nothing the airport is responsible for, I know).
  
Anyways, at check-in everybody received a covid-related contact tracing form, which actually seemed to be taken from what they used to do with arriving passengers. Case in point, as your contact address you weren't required to fill in your country, but your province. However, it turned out that nobody really checked these. They were only collected during boarding at the gate.


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Security was very fast and efficient, though. Note, however, that their equipment is not the most modern, which means that you'll have to take off your belt. On the other hand, they have belts that allow several people to load their plastic trays simulatenously. Great for slightly messy people like me.
After that, it was time to pass through some mandatory duty-free/airport shops, and to see that my flight was on the departure board, indeed (I would learn later how valuable this piece of information is). Firenze Airport is a pretty confined place, with lots of gray and low ceilings. To pass from the initial building after the security check to the actual gate area, you have to traverse a corridor that's about as wide as a jetbridge leading to a regional plane (picture 6 in the following general). All in all, it's a somewhat depressing place to spend time in, with a limited selection of places to buy snacks or drinks and few seating areas. But hey, there's a Lego vending machine, in case you or your kids are bored.
If you're wondering: Yes, there is a lounge, but it was closed. 



Also, I always thought you had to actually visit the Hard Rock Café in a town to be able to purchase the respective souvenirs…


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Speaking of narrow and confined space, the gates themselves are not only located in a separate building, but on the lower floor of that. You can reach that via a downwards escalator, an elevator, or through this set of stairs. The latter two are also the only way to get back, e.g. to get to the Lego vending machine.


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Views of the apron are quite nice, though. Here are a few (I won't bother telling you what kinds of planes and flights these are here - there aren't a lot of flights in Firenze, and you will see all of them on the third photo of the gallery above).


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Yes, it was a nice day, weather-wise!

The waiting area at the gates itself was, as I said, pretty cramped and not at all able to cope with the actual number of passengers. Especially with covid distancing measures in place (see the yellow stripes on every second seat). At least there were a number of power plugs and information displays dispersed throughout the area. 



Soon, I happened to be witness to the arrival of today's plane from Frankfurt, quickly rolling up right towards the terminal building…


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Today's aircraft: Embraer E195LR I-ADJY, delivered new to Augsburg Airways in Janury 2009 (12 years old). Transferred first to Lufthansa Cityline in 2013, after that to Air Dolomiti in January 2020. Configured with 116 seats in total.
(All info courtesy of Flightradar24 and Planespotters.com) 


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Boarding for the 13:35 departure was scheduled to commence at 13:10. I was "gate-lousing" around since about 13:00 as there was simply nothing to do in that time. Boarding actually began about five minutes late but then went very quickly. It was done via a bus, which seemed a bit pointless since the distance to the plane from the terminal building was about 30 meters. Safety first, I guess. I managed to get a few shots of today's plane, a Luxair Dash 8, and the beautiful fire engine building of FLR from the bus. If you want to take pictures, be quick about it, as the whole of the bus was clad in a not so photo-friendly advertisement.



Onboard


Embarking onto the plane took place via the door portside doors, rows 1 to 15 through the front door and the rest in the back. The aircraft was equipped with the current standard Lufthansa group regional seats. I noticed that the windows are quite large but at a distance from each other, creating lots of window seats with restricted views.



…and of course my seat, 6F, was one of these! To look out the window, I either had to angle myself weirdly to get a glimpse through the window behind me or bend forward, blocking the view for my seat neighbor in the process. So taking photos would be somewhat difficult today.


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Back to the seat itself, though: Legroom was alright for a regional flight. As per usual for this type of seats, there is one larger literature pocket at the top behind the tray table, and a pouch for storing smaller items down below. In the literature pocket were a safety card and a sick bag that was folded in in a way that information about the inflight-wifi (haven't tried that) was shown. 
The cabin was well cleaned but lacked any other distinctive features. As with my last flight, however, I had a big problem with a horizontal metal bar protruding out of the seat and hitting my spine with hardly any padding at all. This might be down to how my stature, but how someone could greenlight this at Lufthansa Group still baffles me. Well, the seat was alright for the ca. 1-hour-flight, I guess.



At 13:35 sharp, the announcement "embarco terminato" (I never heard this announcement in another language than English) was made; boarding was finished with the plane being about 90% full, I would guess.


The Flight itself


The taxi, during which safety announcements were made first in English and Italian, then in German (prerecorded), was brief. The only noteable catch was this Swiss A220, which, as far as I understand, are getting more and more common, though. We made our way along the runway and then turned around to take off towards the South.



Off to the sky (courtesy of the powerful CF34 turbofans), with a few last shots of Tuscany before everything disappeared under a layer of clouds…



Inflight service commenced shortly and consisted just of this bottle of water. Otherwise, the flight was uneventful. There weren't even some slight bumps during the flight.


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After what could have been half an hour at most, the descent into Frankfurt began… with the weather being much worse than in Italy ;) Pretty much for the complete descent, the view out of the window looked something like this:


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The flight attendants made their final rounds to check that everybody had their tray tables up, window shades opened, etc., and then the Hanau/Offenbach region appeared seemingly out of nowhere.


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16 degrees Celsius down there, in August! 

Customary Frankfurt skyline photo (on the left): 


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And before I knew it, we flew across the Autobahn A5 (pretty steeply)…


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…and touched down in FRA nice and smoothly at around 15:10.


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Thrust reversers fully deployed!


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The pilot in charge of the helms obviously liked driving fast, so without further ado we blazed across Frankfurt's apron.

Passing a Lufthansa A350, not a very common sight in FRA (I think). 


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Unexpectedly, we neared a proper terminal gate with a jetbridge (A36)…


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…and came to a halt next to Lufthansa A320neo D-AIJA.


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Deboarding wasn't done by rows. But I was not in a particular hurry, so I let others deboard first and got a glimpse of the catering vehicle docking onto our E195 almost instantly. A company I've never heard of with an… unusual corporate design ;)


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Last view of the airplane after deboarding…


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Thanks for taking me here! It was a good flight so far, even though I wouldn't have liked to stay on that seat for much longer. Other than that, I think that the Embraer E-Jet as a regional jet has similar levels of comfort to an A320 family plane, with the added benefit of no middle seats even in Y.


Disaster strikes


I'll spare you most of the usual Frankfurt arrival talk, as I have covered this several times already and nothing really has changed.

But well, after disembarking was where things took a turn to the worse… 

Self-doubt #1: The walk through the gray and depressing terminal building was very long. At one point, I double-checked if I'm still on the correct way to the baggage claim because I was walking for so long without reaching anything ;) 


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Fortunately, I soon recognized parts of the terminal and found the baggage claim area. I thought I was lucky because the exit was right at the carousel the luggage from Florence was supposed to arrive on.


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"Supposed to" is the right expression here; as we waited, a low single-digit number of suitcases started trickling down the carousel every ten minutes or so. At some point, I looked at one of the suitcases to see if delivery from FLR had finally started, only to see that it was from Zurich…


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Meanwhile, it was not only the Hamburg flight that showed "delayed" delivery of the baggage. Strange, because except for one suitcase, I didn't see any luggage from Hamburg…


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At around 16:10, one hour after the landing, still nothing had happened. Except that a Barcelona flight was added to this particular carousel. Well, that sounds like a recipe for a quick and reliable baggage delivery: We already have three flights with difficulties on this carousel, so why not add another one? Especially one from Barcelona, which will be full of tourists coming home?

Self-doubt #2: I was beginning to wonder if I had just missed the whole delivery and everyone was already on their way home while I made myself busy playing around on my phone.

And then I couldn't believe my eyes. I double-checked on multiple info screens, but the flight from Florence had just vanished! As if it never existed!


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Time to talk to the staff! But where were they? No-one was walking around donning something akin to a Fraport/Lufthansa uniform. There were also no inforrmation counters of any kind. Only after walking past a few further carousels was I able to locate a counter… Condor, and vacated. On the side of the room where the exit also was, I finally located a Lufthansa baggage counter. And by no means was I the first and only one with this problem!


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Good that I noticed everything early, so there were only a dozen or so people in front of me in the line. Behind me were another fifty or so, most of them from the Florence flight. One Lufthansa staff member at the front desk did everything he could to clarify the situation and calm down raised tempers, which to be fair, he did well. When the line grew longer and longer, he proactively talked to different people waiting there to find out if there were also from Florence of if they had other problems that could perhaps be solved directly.
As for us victims of Air Dolomiti, he had the following information: for a few days now, EN had not been able to take all the luggage of their Frankfurt passengers; luggage had to be loaded on subsequent flights, which meant that on Sunday they were mostly taking the luggage of Saturday's passengers etc. From today's flight EN8855, only one (1!) suitcase was taken to Frankfurt; all the other luggage transported was from the day before! Furthermore, the flight had disappeared from the displays as this would automatically happen after an hour. For us this meant talking to the Lufthansa baggage tracing people, filing a claim to our luggage and arranging delivery. For this, we were not only asked to describe our luggage and its contents but also to give information about phone number, e-mail and postal address. The staff member at the counter assured us that the baggage would arrive in the next two days.

What made me p*ssed was not necessarily that my suitcase didn't make it to Frankfurt with the same flight. Mishaps like that can happen, and I'm in the relatively comfortable position that I was on my way home anyways and didn't have to make it to a connecting flight. A lady in the line before me was less lucky, because she was in Frankfurt for a few days only before returning to Firenze, from what I understood. A couple behind me was anxious about getting themselves and their stuff home to Hamburg.
No, what really shocked me was the utter and complete lack of information on the side of Air Dolomiti and Lufthansa. I understand that they don't tell their passengers that their baggage won't make it right at the airport. But even at the baggage claim area, there was nothing, not on the displays and not a PA either, that passengers of EN8855 should make their way to the next staffed counter. So we wasted an hour there without any rhyme or reason, only to find out that Air Dolomiti has systematically left most of their passengers' baggage behind for the last couple of days! I mean, this is a lose-lose situation: passengers arrive without their personal things, there is baggage piling up in FLR, and Air Dolomiti create hundreds of disgruntled costumers that will at least highly doubt EN's ability to organize anything at all. Not to mention all the costumer relations and airport counter stuff that will have to do extra shifts to deal with angry customers. Why not have a container of baggage delivered by a professional cargo service to ease up the congestion? Yes, it would have cost EN money, but we passengers have paid money to get our baggage transported with us!

To add insult to injury, the way the baggage delivery was organized also left a lot to be desired. Yes, there was a hotline number that was given us where we could check the current status of our luggage. However, I tried to call there 12 (!) times in total - during their opening hours, of course -, only to find out that either the line was occupied or simply nobody picked up the phone. The twelfth time I finally succeeded in getting someone on the phone. As everybody involved from the side of EN/LH/Fraport, they were pretty friendly and helpful. The employee on the phone told me that my suitcase had arrived that day and that I should expect the delivery at some point after 3pm on the same day. So far, so good (apart maybe from the ludicrous prognosis as to when to except the delivery). She also emphasized that I should make sure that someone is home at that point, otherwise there would be a secondary attempt at delivery which isn't paid for by EN. That means that if I hadn't succeeded at getting someone on the phone, I could have been out when the delivery happens (not knowing that the delivery was imminent, of course) and then would have had to pay for the failure of EN to inform me of the delivery time! For context: they had my mail address and my cell phone number. They could have just written a short text message. What can that possibly cost?
Skipping to about 10pm on the same day… I'm glad I was on my phone because otherwise I would probably have missed that incoming call (tbh I wasn't expecting the delivery anymore). A guy called, saying that he was in front of the house with my suitcase. And indeed, in front of the house I could find a small panel van waiting. I sprinted outside, saw my suitcase, signed that I had received it and thanked the delivery person. Another thing that could be improved: if I hadn't been there to pick up the call (but perhaps would have asked someone else to accept the delivery), the driver would have probably left, leading me to pay for a secondary delivery attempt. Maybe it would be better if the delivery service just used the doorbell like any reasonable person would.


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Fun fact: the suitcase had been flown in via ZRH, where baggage handling stuff obviously had treated it pretty roughly, increasing the number of scratches and dirt by about 50% compared to before (though it didn't look particularly new before, either).

Well, everything went okay-ish in the end. And even the bottle of wine which was in the suitcase was still in one piece when it arrived at my home. I honestly feel pretty exhausted writing these lines and just want to leave that chapter behind. I just thought it would be important to let you guys know of that little episode…

If you're still here, thank you so much for bearing with me. I hope you still could somewhat enjoy this flight report despite everything that happened. I know way worse things can possibly happen, but I hadn't experienced something like this before, and I was just taken aback by how bad and unprofessionally a company like Lufthansa (and, in extension, Air Dolomiti) could handle such a situation. Anyways, thank you again, and see you soon on Flight-Report.com!

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Verdict

Air Dolomiti

1.8/10
Cabin2.0
Cabin crew2.0
Entertainment/wifi2.0
Meal/catering1.0

Firenze - FLR

5.2/10
Efficiency4.0
Access6.0
Services5.0
Cleanliness6.0

Frankfurt - FRA

3.4/10
Efficiency1.5
Access7.0
Services0.5
Cleanliness4.5

Conclusion

EN: The cabin was okay; it was fairly clean and new, with nice and big windows and okay seat pitch. Just the seat construction itself was uncomfortable for me. I didn't really interact much with the cabin crew and didn't use their wifi service. Catering consisted of just a bottle of water. I cannot give EN more than 1,8/10 for this flight, though, for reasons stated above. 1,8/10 isn't 1/10 or 0/10, though, which in my book are reserved for total disasters. (Judging from the level of service alone, discounting the baggage disaster, this flight would be something like a 4,5/10).

FLR: Nothing special here. A not very nicely designed and pretty cramped airport. The only thing that's somewhat efficient is the security check. Everything else was painfully slow. Access to the city is provided by an express bus and the tram T2, taking you to Piazza della Unità in 20 minutes for 1,50€. Shops and facilities in the airport are limited.

FRA: Do I really have to say something here? Well, FRA was sufficiently clean and is still a good airport access-wise. However, this time I was extremely disappointed by the (lack of) efficiency in dealing with passengers and their problems and the total lack of information regarding the baggage problem. "Services" still gets half a point, though, because the staff I had contact with were somewhat nice.

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2 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 579798 by
    Plainfreak 46 Comments
    Thanks for taking the time to write this report.

    What a saga, about the luggage, very poor service. Thankfully you got your suitcase back.

    Best, Dani
    • Comment 579856 by
      Manbou AUTHOR 67 Comments
      Hi Dani, thank you for taking the time to read and comment. I thought it would be important to let everybody interested know about this story, even though it might represent just a portion of the overall Air Dolomiti experience and other people experience way worse things during their travels... Anyways, all the best to you too.
      - Peter

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