On June 28, 2008 I took an Alitalia flight from Madrid to Rome. That day I was to begin a study abroad program through New York University in Florence. I am currently a junior at the University of Miami, but had heard wonderful things about the program and decided it would be the most exciting way to spend my summer. I arrived in Fiumicino airport excited about my trip and rushed to the baggage claim because I had a train to catch to Florence. After an hour of waiting for my bag along with the other passengers of my flight I watched as almost the entire group retrieved their bags. The delay was explained on a luggage cart that had broken down, spilled the bags, and caused them to mix with those from other flights. Soon I realized I was one of two individuals still waiting for their luggage. One of my 2 checked bags did arrive, but it was torn and my other bag, the one with all of my clothes for the 6 week program I would be participating in was nowhere to be found. It has now been 11 days and I still have no bag and no clothes, and have had no option but to continuously wash the clothes I flew in on and spend the little money I came to the program with on a couple shirts, bras, and underwear . In this time Alitalia has proven to be an irresponsible, indifferent, and altogether incompetent company.
On the second night my bag was missing I noticed online that the less than helpful woman who I filed my claim with had created a file in which my pink bag was described as purple and the tracking number for my bag was incorrect. I immediately changed the information on the internet and printed a confirmation assuring me that my information had been corrected. However, for the next 3 days I continued to check the website only to see that the incorrect information remained. Common sense would say that a simple call to an Alitalia customer service representative would solve the issue, but I soon came to see that neither sense nor customer service was to be found amongst the ranks of Alitalia employees. For over 48 hours it was impossible to get anyone on the phone, primarily because of the fact that the number they gave me to call was consistently busy. Because of the fact that I have no access to a phone from which I can call numbers in Italy free of charge, my mother has been calling from the US in order to help resolve this problem. However, when she called the New York office they refused to help her and told her she had to call the office in Italy. She has currently used up 10 calling cards in order to call Alitalia and be treated rudely, offered no assistance, placed on hold for hours on end, and usually to be hung up on.
When people finally began to pick up her phone calls she spent an entire 2 days being told that their systems were down and they could not offer any information on the bag. She decided to call back and make inquiries regarding a reservation, shockingly enough, their computers were up and running again and prepared to make her reservation...that was until she told them she really needed help finding lost baggage. They also informed her that they did not know why the corrected information was not appearing in their files and said that it was impossible for them to manually enter the corrections. My mother finally did talk to someone who, after about a half hour of insisting it was impossible for him to do, manually changed the description of the bag. However, because this company which flies out of major US airports and serves US citizens does not have a single representative that speaks professional levels of English a corrected description of my bag as pink with black borders was then entered as a pink bag with black zebra stripes.
Nevertheless, on the 5th day I was told my bag was in Madrid and would arrive that evening. That evening I was told there was no way of knowing where the bag was, or any explanation as to why I had been told it was found, and that I needed to call the next day. Since then we have called every day at 10, only to be told to call back at 2, called at 2 only to be told to call back at 6, called at 6 only to be told to call back at 9, and called at 9 only to be told to call back the next day.
On the 7th day the bag was missing we were told that they had only just corrected the description of the bag and had therefore only been looking for it for one day. We were therefore not yet entitled to speak to any higher ranked employees who handle baggage that has been missing for more than 5 days. On the 9th day the bag was missing I was told the bag was definitely in Rome. The next day I was told that they had mistaken my bag coming from Madrid for one that had come from Mexico on the mere basis that I shared a last name with another unfortunate customer of Alitalia.
On the 10th day that the bag was missing I was told that I would have to fax a detailed description of the bag, a description I had attempted to give this company over and over again. I would also have to send in an itemized list of what I had in the bag. They then told me that since they now had it in print (apparently their offices are not equipped with printers with which to print out a lost baggage claim that should have had all the information I was now having to fax them) they would have a better chance of finding my bag. I was also told that I was welcome to fly or take a train from Florence to Rome in order to look for the bag myself amongst their lost baggage, but I would receive no reimbursement for the travel cost.
Because of Alitalia I have spent my first days in Florence shopping for bras, underwear, and laundry detergent. I am being forced to spend what little money I was able to save before beginning to this trip on the cheapest clothes I can find, especially due to the exchange rate between Euros and Dollars. However, what utterly appalls me as a consumer is the fact that this company could not care less about the satisfaction of their customers and is not shy about showing it. At this point I have no idea what to do or who to contact in order to get my bag back and am hoping that someone will be able to give me some helpful information. But, most importantly, I hope that whoever reads this will NEVER FLY ALITLIA, they are a useless company and an embarrasssment to Italy.
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