Review of AeroItalia flight Bergamo → London in Economy

Introduction/context

Hey everyone! Welcome to another Flight Report, this is my first FR with my new phone, so there should (hopefully) be a visible improvement in photo quality.

So I had to visit Italy (again) for a couple of days and I was searching on Google Flights for 'interesting' flights back home. During that search, I went on a massive tangent and ended up looking at flights to Bucharest for some reason? (Yeah, don't ask). It's there that I found a rather peculiar routing via Bergamo which was labelled as South African Express, which really confused me. After a bit of research, I found out that it was actually an AeroItalia flight (their IATA code is XZ, which is the same as the now defunct SA Express) and for some reason that flight only show up on Google Flights when you search London - Bucharest.

Anyway, some info on AeroItalia. While new airline Norse Atlantic Airways got all the media attention for their launch in June this year, another airline was also gearing up operations further south. AeroItalia is an Italian airline that commenced operations in July. The airline initially only operated domestic flights out of its base at Forlì Airport, however they have since expanded into operating flights from Florence and Bergamo recently. I've kinda surprised at the lack of media attention that the airline has received and at the time of booking, I knew almost nothing about the airline so I'm really going in blind here.

before the flight

Now I don't usually talk too much about the booking process in my FRs but for this flight, the weeks leading up to departure is as much of a journey as the flight itself (as you'll soon about to find out).

The first step is to buy the ticket (of course). It appears that Aeroitalia ticket can now be purchased on some third-party websites however they weren't when I booked. This means that I had to buy the tickets from their website, which was a problem for me as the website kept saying connection issue. The problem appears to have been resolved as of the making of the FR however it persisted for at least a month until I discovered that I can access the site from my phone only.

And here I stumbled across another slight confusion - it appears that no one is sure when the flight actually starts. The AeroItalia website claims that flight starts from December 1st but you can only buy tickets from the 5th. Different sites on Google also give conflicting dates. My only explanation of this is that the airline intended to start the route on December 1st but due to some issues the start date got pushed back but no one bothered to update it on the website.

Anyway, I booked on the first available date (5th) and paid a total of €70. This includes a seat reservation and 23kg checked bag. Quite a bit more than LCCs like Ryanair but not as high as full-service carriers like ITA, who is charging the same as its base fare (no seat reservation or checked bag), which is crazily high. I found ITA's fares to be consistantly high for both domestic and international routes. 

While €70 is fairly pricy, I checked AeroItalia's website while making this report and it appears that they are selling BGY-LHR tickets during January for only €10 base - the same as Ryanair!

But anyway, after a few weeks (yes, I'm a fairly determined person) I finally got my tickets and can breathe a sigh of relief….

… except 2 weeks later I received this email:

I don't speak Italian, however, after pasting it into Google Translate, I learnt that my flight on the 5th is now cancelled. The first flight on this route will now depart on the 7th at a different time and that the airline is happy to either rebook me on that flight or refund the ticket. I was fine extending my trip by 2 days, so I chose to rebook….

… and then literally another week later, I got this email:

Yup, the flight on the 7th is now cancelled too and the airline has automatically moved me to the flight the next day. I once again accepted their offer to rebook and extended my trip by another day. Now at this point I was getting worried, as determined as I am with flying AeroItalia, I still had stuff back home in London and (sadly) a finite budget, so I really couldn't afford another delay. Thankfully, that would be the last of the cancellation emails to arrive in my inbox and the day soon arrived for me to try out this brand new airline back to London.

Bergamo Orio al Serio International Airport

Since my flight leaves at 6am, there's really no point in getting a hotel so I decided to spend the night in the airport.

Starting my journey outside Milano Centrale station.

The city is getting into the Christmas mood with all the Christmas Trees (and an ice skating rink right outside). The atmosphere was amazing.

Right outside the railway station there are many buses that leave for Bergamo Airport throughout the day with the last departing at around 11pm and the first leaving at around 4am. They are also very cheap (I paid €18 round trip), much cheaper than the Malpensa Express train for Milano Malpensa.

However, soon after arriving at Bergamo Airport, I realised the mistake in arriving so early. The check-in area closes overnight so all of the people for morning flights are stuffed into the arrivals area with all the arriving passengers and their families, meaning that there weren't many free chairs.

However, the lack of the spare chairs wasn't the real issue. As I continued my exploration of the airport, it soon became clear that a lot of the people aren't travellers but were regular sleepers at the airport. This wouldn't have been such a big issue except some of them were making… unpleasant… comments towards me and some other passengers. I honestly didn't feel comfortable or safe hanging around (and taking photos) of the arrivals area apart from the one above. Luckily I found a fairly quiet spot away from the people and waited it out until 3am when they finally opened the departures area.

This morning's departures - our flight is actually the first of the day.

The check-in area.

Entrance to security - really not a lot of people here at 3am.

I found Bergamo to be quite unusual with its entrance/exit only doors. I suspect this was introduced during COVID for distancing but it did make the airport slightly more confusing to navigate.

A very handy chart detailing all the information in EU regulation 261/2004 basically laying out your rights to compensation and assistance in the event of a flight cancellation or delay. It's super nice to see all the information laid out visually like this and saves the headache of reading and trying to understand the whole thing.

Check in only opened around 2 hours before departure and by that point a hefty queue has already built up. I may be wrong but I can't seem to find an option to check-in online on the AeroItalia website. But anyway, it took me around 30 minutes to check in - not too bad all things considered.

After checking in, we were all handed promotional fliers detailing AeroItalia's future route network out of Bergamo. Not too useful for me but a super nice souvenir nonetheless.

Last views of the outside of the airport before we head into security.

Security took under 5 minutes and we are through to the duty-free area, where most of the stores are closed.

Like Malpensa, Bergamo doesn't force you to walk through a massive duty free store (like most European airport) but instead stores are dotted along the edge.

A quick view of the apron, with a Ryanair 737-800 getting de-iced in preparation of its journey to Lanzarote.

A massive Christmas tree at the end of the terminal.

Views of the A gates, which is used for all Schengen destinations.

I love the modern design of the airport, especially with the artwork mimicking baggage tags.

Through passport control and we are in the non-Schengen area (B gates). Again, super modern and clean with not a lot of people this early.

the flight

Boarding started around 10 minutes late and here's our (quite unusual) route for the day:

Still not quite sure why we flew over Germany and the Netherlands rather than cutting through France.

But anyway, boarding was done by bus and I finally got to see our plane in the AeroItalia livery.

Some info about our Boeing 737-800:
Registration: 9H-GFP
Age: 23 Years

First flew in September 1999, she was first delivered to Air China and had a long life with the airline before moving to Blue Panorama Airlines in 2018 and then finally AeroItalia in August 2022.

Like pretty much every aircraft currently in AeroItalia's fleet, this one formerly belonged to Blue Panorama so the cabin (I think) is the same as the now defunct airline. It would be interesting to see what AeroItalia's cabin is like once they get their new 737 MAXs. 

The seats.

The seat back pocket and tray table.

The legroom - not too bad.

The seats actually recline, which is a really nice feature.

It's been a freezing night tonight here in Italy (quite literally!), so you can see the ice on the wings.

Which means that I get to experience a de-icing for only the 2nd time in my life. (My first was in Reykjavik back in 2018).

 
However this did mean that the windows are all covered in de-icing fluid so sadly the taxi and takeoff shots will be very smudged.

Because we had to wait for de-icing to finish, we departed around 30 minutes late.

Yeah, this photo (and the next) won't be great. If you look very closely, you can make out a Ryanair 737 getting ready to take off for Brindisi.

Takeoff from runaway 10, bye bye Italy!

A turn to the right gives us an amazing aerial view of Milan at night.

Because of our unusual routing where we flew East first, we ended up over the Austrian Alps. This would've been an insane view in the day, but sadly you can't really see much at night.

The white you see is actually snow-capped peaks. The line of roads/towns are between the mountains.

One last photo of the alps, here you can see everything a bit better.

I fell asleep soon after taking that photo and woke up as we were over Germany as the crew came around serving drinks.

AeroItalia actually gives out complimentary drinks. However, you can only choose between tea, coffee and water. I didn't get anything as I was way too sleepy.

The airline sadly don't offer any buy-onboard service at the moment, so you'll have to remember to eat at the airport or bring food onboard. This means that the seat back pocket only includes an air safety card.

A really nice sunrise as we (finally) turn West towards the Netherlands.

Over the English Channel and starting our descent.

First views of the UK.

Like Milan, the UK is actually freezing cold these few days.

One of the best things about Heathrow is that it's probably got the best approach in the world. If you're lucky, you'll get the full tour of the city before you've even landed!

A right bank to bring us onto final also gives an amazing view of Canary Wharf.

Tower Bridge (the first bridge over the river from the right with the lights) and the City of London.

London Eye with the Houses of Parliament across the river. St James's Park and Buckingham Palace can also been seen on the left.

Finally, welcome to London! We landed around 50 minutes late.

Having landed on 27R, we had to taxi across the entire airport to get to Terminal 4, which took around 10 minutes. But finally we arrived and parked next to a Gulf Air 787.

London heathrow airport

This is my first time arriving into Terminal 4 of Heathrow and getting through is incredibly efficient. The line for UK and EU passport holders is actually empty probably because every flight arriving here this early is long-haul from Asia and Africa.

Baggage reclaim, I waited only 5 minutes for my luggage.

The short wait at baggage reclaim means that I went from the plane to the arrivals hall in under 30 minutes, which is super nice for an airport as large as Heathrow.

But that's it for this FR, check out the bonus below for some photos of what I did during the 3-day extension. See you next time for another FR soon!

Bonus : Click here display hide

Because the flight got pushed from Monday to Thursday, I suddenly found myself having 3 days spare in Milan. For the first day, I decided to go planespotting, the weather ended up being not great, but at least it didn't rain. Here's some of my highlights:

For the next 2 days, I opted to head for the Alps since Milan is so close to it and it's absolutely stunning.

The city of Como, 30 minutes away from Milan by train.

Heading deeper into the Alps and entering Switzerland. The cities of Lugano and Locarno, Swizerland.

And of course no visit to Italy is ever complete without pizza. ;)