Spot the difference with Mediterranean and Nordic airlines
I recently travelled Alitalia and Scandinavian Airlines from Palermo, Sicily to Copenhagen via Fiumicino airport or what is commonly known as Rome. Check-in for my Alitalia flight to Rome took forever as passengers seemed to outnumber check-in staff 50 to 1.
Nevertheless through the mayhem of free boarding I made it on-board of sorts. There I was faced with passengers with too much hand luggage, people unable to find their seats and when they did they didn’t sit down. The flight attendant announced in two languages three times “This aircraft will not leave until all passengers are seated, so please sit down”. I had a fairly tight connection in Rome so I was wanting to throw this one guy into his seat. It seemed that nobody was seated where they wanted to be, so there was much yelling as a normal form of communication and of course, with the mandatory waving of arms. Getting out in Rome was like an emergency evacuation with confusion over similar looking bags.
through the mayhem of free boarding I made it on-board of sorts. There I was faced with passengers with too much hand luggage, people unable to find their seats and when they did they didn’t sit down. The flight attendant announced in two languages three times “This aircraft will not leave until all passengers are seated, so please sit down”. I had a fairly tight connection in Rome so I was wanting to throw this one guy into his seat. It seemed that nobody was seated where they wanted to be, so there was much yelling as a normal form of communication and of course, with the mandatory waving of arms. Getting out in Rome was like an emergency evacuation with confusion over similar looking bags.
I did make my Scandinavian SAS flight Rome to Copenhagen but only just as passengers were boarding when I got to the gate. No yelling or pushing just blonde haired people filing on-board putting the one piece of hand luggage in the overhead locker, sitting down, doing up the seat belt, unfolding the newspaper and wondering why cabin crew were required. Disembarkation did not even start until the aircraft had come to a complete stop. In fact the whole flight was boring, uneventful, lacking Italian flair & passion. Come on you Danes!
