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We landed late in Leonardo da Vinci-Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO) (review here), but still had time to check out the ITA Airways Hangar Lounge before our flight to Frankfurt International Airport (FRA). Our second flight was on an Airbus A220. The aircraft felt new and it was a comfortable ride to Frankfurt on a much cooler plane than our first flight.
Anthony’s Take: My second ITA Airways flight was much more comfortable temperature-wise. I made the mistake of choosing seats on the right side of the aircraft. The plane is in a 2-3 configuration throughout the plane and the DEF side offers an empty middle seat between the two passengers. There is no difference between the seats in First Class and Economy Class on the side with two seats. We were served a meal and it was disgusting. The Wi-Fi also only worked for about 30 minutes during our flight. I was also disappointed that beverage choices were water, orange juice, Coca Cola, or beer. The selection seemed so limited.
Booking
As mentioned in the first leg of this trip, I booked the flights directly with ITA Airways. Business Class was around $271 per person. ITA Airways is part of SkyTeam and my Diamond Medallion status with Delta (along with being in a premium cabin) afforded me SkyPriority status and early boarding at Leonardo da Vinci-Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO).
Boarding
Boarding was much more organized than it was on the first flight. Boarding passes and identification were checked before people were allowed to line up in the Economy or Priority lines. Group 1 was called and we boarded quickly.
Seats
Business Class was designated as the first three rows of the plane. There is no difference in the seat layout between Business Class and Economy Class except for the DEF side, which offers an empty middle seat.
The entire plane has two seats on the right side regardless of cabin (we were in 1A and 1B).
I chose wrong and got us less space than if I had picked seats 1D and 1F.
Individual air nozzles and lights are overhead. The aircraft was much cooler than the first flight.
Each seat had a tray table, but there were no power outlets.
Food
A choice of water or orange juice was offered for predeparture beverages.
Meals were distributed a little while later. Most of the items were unidentifiable and tasted gross. The cheese was rubbery and I could not identify what was in the sandwiches. Even the Tiramisu tasted pretty low quality and grainy.
Wi-Fi
This ITA Airways flight offered Wi-Fi for sale. It took almost the entire flight to connect and only worked for about 30 minutes.
There were three packages ranging from $5 to $15 on this flight.
I chose the two-hour package and paid $10. Wi-Fi was slow during the 30 minutes it worked.
Service
The flight attendant was friendly and was serving the cabin throughout the flight.
Lavatory
There is a lavatory at the front of the plane. It felt larger than most narrowbody planes and was bright.
Overall Impression: The flight departed on time, but arrived slightly late. The food was awful and the Wi-Fi was inoperable for most of the flight. Beverages are limited and ITA Airways really needs better catering. At least this flight was cooler than my first leg.
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
1 comment
We flew ITA, business class, last year, LAX TO FCO AND A RETURN FCO to JFK. NEVER AGAIN! Poor food, almost non existent service and outdated cabin and seating. They changed my return flights without notification. Almost impossible to contact. Took my travel agent two days to fix things.