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Alitalia
I saw something on another thread about Alitalia's closing down and asked my travel agent about it today. She said that it was going to become "something else" in October and starting Oct. 1, they're going to be cancelling flights. I had a flight on Alitalia booked for Oct. 8 (as a Delta codeshare), but decided to change my flight to a different airline so I wouldn't spend the next month worrying about whether my flight would be cancelled, and then scrambling to rebook while on my tour. (Been there, done that in March 2020!). Big thanks to whoever gave the head's up about Alitalia's issue.
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The story varies somewhat from source to source, but the end result is about the same. The Points Guy said,
"Italian national carrier Alitalia announced Tuesday Aug. 24 that it would stop issuing tickets and will effectively shut down operations as it prepares to dissolve and be replaced by a new airline."
The new carrier, Italia Transporto Aereo (ITA), plans to begin operations on Oct. 15, 2021, according to the airline. Alitalia will consequently stop selling tickets for flights on or after that date, and will allow passengers with tickets for later to reschedule or request a refund."
Alitalia was essentially state-owned since 2017, so this is not a good sign.
Hopefully, Tauck or Delta has notified you, but folks booked with a Skyteam carrier (Delta, AF, KLM) for their return flights from Cairo after the Egypt; Jewels and J&E tours, might want to check their tickets to see what carrier is listed for the leg from Cairo. I know at one point Skyteam was using both AF via CDG and Alitalia via FCO (Fiumicino/da Vinci) in Rome
Does anyone know the status of SAA, they had/are having the same issue and were looking for a buyer, possibly Ethiopian. They were one of the few carriers beyond BA/COMAIR that flew from JNB Johannesburg to Livingstone.
We are hoping to book flights for our Botswana tour in the next few days. I’ll see what comes up. But leave all that up to my husband