Alitalia Italian Airlines

As I’m writing this review, a little turn of my head to the right would bring the Colloseum into view. Yup, I’m with my folks in Rome.
We flew out with Alitalia, which had the most conveniently timed flights for us. Just in case you’re using Unilocal to find out how to catch your flight, they now fly from Terminal 4 at Heathrow, not Terminal 2 as stated on Unilocal.
Terminal 4 has been vacated by British Airways, which has decamped to Terminal 5. The facilities at Terminal 4 are OK but there isn’t a lot to do or see if you don’t fancy spending a lot of money at some high-​end shops.
We were accosted by a lady at the empty check in, who insisted we use the self check in. Except that the machine wanted us to match our 15 digit ticket number to name but the print out that the website had given us didn’t match our names to the ticket numbers. After 5 minutes fighting with the computer punching in random names to numbers, she relented and looked up our numbers, then returned to tell us to do it again. Hmmm…
When printing out our boarding passes, the machine announced in big bold letters on the screen that our boarding time was 20 minutes after our plane was supposed to depart! When I pointed this out to the check in lady, she shrugged her shoulders and said that the computer was wrong. I asked if she was worried that some passengers could believe the screen and turn up at the gate after the plane would have departed. She wasn’t bothered.
The plane departed 50 minutes late with no apology. The food offered on our 2 hour flight was a drink and ‘sweet or salty’ snacks. Po-​faced flight attendants.
Could do better. I hope! Though I suppose as least they’re flying, unlike BA