Pleaae can someone help me. We have booked a flight to Florence on June 9th. When we booked this flight we were given seats assignments. I called twice on occasion to verify this flight information, and today when I called I was told our seats were given away, because the flight changed. Their customer service rep was so nasty to me and told me that she could do nothing to give us our seat back...they were already given to someone else......so now what do I do?? Can someone advise.

Keep calling back until you get a nice person to help you. If it looks like you got another stinker, hang up and dial again. Is it a code share with another airline, like Delta? If it is I would call them also.


Ginger

WE HAD THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN with Air France, reservations made in 6-06 Schedule change of (5) FIVE minutes and they gave away our seats....basically they dont give a s**t, and no amount of pleading or talking to someone else will change it...these ******** need a wake up call...WHO IS THE CLIENT ANYWAY....
daka and Priscilla in Paris

Call about a week before your flight leaves. I am surprised that you even got seat assignments when you purchased your tickets because Alitalia, in my experience, usually assigns seats at check-in, unless you know to call in advance. I have never called more than a week or two in advance, for that matter.

Forgive me for this question, but if you don't get the seat assignment ahead of time, does it truly matter? My mother and I were separated by several rows and columns on our flight in 2005, and though we were disappointed for about three minutes, it didn't ruin anything.

It's all good. Just get to Italy and have fun.

Well ya know, I called twice before and was given the same seat assignments....my husband has a medical issue, so this is why we were given these seats to begin with. I was asking for advice not criticism!

Perhaps I should have been clearer. Call about a week or so before your flight, because seats are often re-assigned on Alitalia flights as the date of the flight draws closer. That is the only method that has worked for me; seat assignments with this airline are always subject to last-minute changes.

Can you bring a physician's note, with his phone number - explaining your husband's condition and his seat requirements - to check-in? You might have a better chance of being heard when you are face-to-face with the ticket agent.

It is all advice, not criticism.

Now I'm a little nervous about our Air Italia flight in September. I want us together for the simple reason that we are booked for two seats together, no one else in the row because it is a 2-seater and it will make a world of difference in trying to catch some sleep on the flight over from Boston. If you end up in a 3 or longer seat row, you end up with worrying about people crawling over you while you try to sleep. Its the best convenience for those of us who aren't flying first class. I think you have a simple right to have the seats you were "promised" under at least normal (non-cancellation) conditions.

I'm with Stella, call the week before or as I think someone else mentioned, arrive at the airport early for check-in - the ticket agent will have some discretion on seat assignments, especially for medical conditions. Also, if/when you do call, make sure they understand that it's really only one of you that requires the special seat (i.e., I'm assuming you can sit apart as long as your husband gets the seat he needs) - it may be much easier to accomodate that request. Lastly, don't be afraid to elevate your request.

And you should also know, this issue/problem isn't solely related to Alitalia. We had the same problem on a Continental flight only then we were traveling with small children. We had to call back twice, elevate it three times and were on the phone with them for 90 minutes. Now we wouldn't make such a fuss but at the time Sammi was four and we didn't think it was fair to her or the people sitting around her to be without a parent nearby. As it turned out, when we boarded there were several families split in a similar fashion. Most people though were kind about switching sits.

I think that if you are pre assigned a seat they should honour it. So the sad fact is if you persist and keep going up the chain of command eventually someone will do something. It is very irritating and time consuming but is often the only way to get results. Lots of people have reasons for wanting to sit together which others may not understand...flight anxiety,phobias,wanting to make sure the person with a medical condition is kept an eye on etc,etc.

On UK based carriers it is not the practice to split children from a parent for child protection reasons. In fact on Ryanair a pasenger was refused travel recently because she had twins,and on her outward journey her sister was with her and had one twin on her lap whilst the passsenger had the other. On the return journey the sister was not present,and although another passenger offered to seat the child on her lap and the mother agreed,Ryanair would not allow it. Mother and children were offloaded!!!!

Unless your first flight is the trans-Atlantic flight to Italy (leaving out of JFK, Newark, etc.), arriving at the airport early probably won't help. That is our situation. We leave out of Buffalo--and I'll bet dollars to donuts that they won't be able to confirm our seats on Alitalia out of JFK, which will take off many hours later...... By the time we arrive at JFK, many others will have beat us to the punch.

I know Fur Kids Mom, I am so upset I've stewed about this now for a week. I wrote a letter and faxed it to Alitalia's customer service department last week. Let's see of the will even acknowledge my gripe....

Along the same thread, kind of- I was on a plane (think it was American) from Utah to Chicago or thereabouts, had a window seat, there was a man in the aisle seat then at the last minute a 40ish year old woman was escorted and told to sit between us. To make a long, very weird story short, it turns out she was psychotic, had boarded with her SON, for some reason they weren't seated together and the crew "decided" that me and the guy on the aisle seat looked like we could "help take care of her" (we found this out after we landed)- so we sat with a woman who was clearly out to lunch the whole trip, popping some kind of pills, spilling food all over the place, couldn't figure out how to put her seatbelt on- just a very stressful situation. We had to help her eat, fasten and unfasten her seatbelt, listen to her mumble constantly, clean up her spilled food, etc. We weren't given an option and I'd love to know how the assessment was made that two strangers would make a good pair of babysitters.