5 ms·

I've never in my life gone through a more bureaucratic, more inefficient, slower experience than any flight I've had on Alitalia.

• dpapathanasiou 19y ago
  It's all relative: Greeks would love to have a national airline as "good" as Alitalia, since they have to deal with Olympic Airways.
  • davidw 19y ago
    The problem is that governments should just get out of the way and let the private sector provide things like air transport. There is no excuse for a bunch of taxpayers subsidizing other, most likely wealthier taxpayers' airplane rides with inefficient, bloated companies like Alitalia.
    • dpapathanasiou 19y ago
      The private sector is a better manager than government, but even here, where it's all private companies in a deregulated industry, it's not that much better: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2007/09/03/070903ta_talk_surowiecki http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2007/09/03/070903ta_...
    • nostrademons 19y ago
      I really don't think it's a public vs. private issue, because I've been on Air New Zealand and the service is way, way better than any carrier in the U.S. My sister has said the same about Qantas. Really, I think it has to do with communicating a sense of purpose to all employees, at all levels. If a state airline does that, you have a good state airline. If a private airline does that, you have a good private airline. In theory, a strong private sector ensures that firms that don't do this are replaced by firms that do, but frictional costs in the aviation business are so large that this often takes decades.
  • deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]