I've cut-and-pasted the 'official' complaint I'm about to send via email to Alitalia, but I've been appalled at their intransigence and rudeness. I decided the only way to deal with them was to embarrass them publicly by raising my complaint openly on their Facebook wall. After eight days of refusing to return my luggage, magically it appeared. No financial compensation, of course, and certainly no apology. Their loss, I'll continue to badmouth them to anyone who'll listen and they won't be getting my custom again.
------------------------COMPLAINT SENT TO ALITALIA-------------
I missed my originally booked connecting flight AZ2034 from Rome Fiumicino (on 26-06-11) by appx 10 minutes. I was found and paid for two later connecting flights to London Heathrow via Milan AZ2092/AZ7898 and was told my baggage would be sent directlyto London Heathrow, where I could collect it from the dedicated Baggage Retrieval desk. I duly caught the two later connecting flights and went to the Baggage Retrieval desk at Heathrow, as advised. My luggage wasn’t there. I was told to fill out a form, which I did. I handed it over and was not given a receipt. Two days later, when my luggage still hadn’t arrived, I rang Alitalia at Heathrow and was told categorically – first by an employee called Connie, then by her boss, a Mr Andrea Talocchi, that they had my luggage, that it had travelled with me on each of the connecting flights I’d taken. It had taken them almost twelve hours to notice my luggage was on the carousel. When I pointed out that the check in clerk at the Rome Alitalia desk had informed me my luggage would be sent directly, both Connie and Mr Talocchi said this was ‘impossible’, as ‘no airline is allowed by law to send luggage separately to the passenger’. Therefore, Mr Talocchi argued, I would have to return to Heathrow at my own expense to collect it. He refused to accept it had been lost. A few days later, a representative of Thomsons in High Wycombe (who had originally booked my Alitalia flights) said that every airline has to fly lost luggage separately to the passenger after it is reported lost, and that the advice I had been given by Connie and Mr Talocchi was nonsense. I waited eight days before – with no apology or explanation – my luggage was delivered to my home address late one night. By that time I had been advised to contact – and had, at my own expense – Alitalia’s Head Office in Rome & B.A.A. in London. I decided to press for compensation via Alitalia’s Facebook page, and was stonewalled at every stage. No apology, no offer of compensation. I now expect fair and proper remuneration for the distress caused me by holding on to my luggage for over a week, for refusing to take responsibility for the mishandling of my property, plus payment for the pressing/dry-cleaning of my suit. I attach photocopies of all the relevant documentation, including the luggage tag.