Air Malta to Malta

... or maybe not.  

This one started to look like trouble as early as a couple of weeks ago.   There are two daily Rome-Malta nonstops, Alitalia at 9:55am and Air Malta at 10:10am.   Been there, done that with Alitalia short-haul and it was miserable.  Air Malta Business Class was cheaper and it was the later flight.  So I figured, "how bad can Air Malta be"?   LOL, Quel idiot I can be sometimes.   The first sign of trouble came a couple of weeks ago when I starting getting emails with my flight confirmation.  Since the seats were the same 1D and 1F, I didn't pay much attention.  I thought that it seemed a little anal to be repeatedly sending me the same confirmation.  Then I started getting phone calls from +356 and message to call Air Malta.  Seriously?  I finally contact them and was told that our flight had been changed to all Economy and there is no Business Class on our flight.  We still had the same seats 1D and 1F and there is no one in 1E.  OK, whatever.  Strange, as the seat map still showed the same A320 seating with Business Class now on the Economy seat map.  Well I guess we just saved money as we'll get a refund.

Fast forward to last night and OLCI tells me our seats have changed and 1D and 1F are now 1D and 2F, and 1F is now occupied.  What the eff?  Air Malta Customer Service is completely useless as I am bounced from one department to another and then back the first department and person I spoke with at the outset.  I OLCI'd with 1D and 2F and figure I'll head for check-in counter and find out what's up.

This morning we arrive at Terminal 3 just over 2 hours before departure.

Agent apologizes for the seat confusion and advises that today's flight is not an Air Malta plane but operated by a Lithuanian airline on a wet lease basis.  

Agent offered to move 2F to 1C so we would then have bulkhead cross aisle seats.  Perfect solution, or so we thought.  Forgot that It's Italy, it's FCO, it's Air Malta.  More later...

After security, we headed for the D gates...

To the lounges on the mezzanine level.

We used our Priority Pass to access the AviaPartner Mosaici Lounge.

Whoa, don't those look good.  LOL.

While Mrs. SFO777 relaxed, I decided to check out the neighborhood.  The Alitalia Lounge.

And the other smaller but more modern Priority Pass lounge, strangely adjacent to the one we were in.

At around T-40, we headed down to our Gate D3, where there was still no plane but hoards of gate lice already lined up.  Really? 

Twenty minutes later, a plane pulled into the gate.  Ellinair?  I thought we were on GetJet today??

We found seats at an adjacent gate, which was calm and quiet... until two kids with no piano skills started banging on the keyboard.  Oh joy.

I periodically visited the gate podium to see what was going on.  On one occasion asked the same agent that checked us in if there was priority boarding?  She said yes, if I'd like.  Huh? Cool.  After some supposedly handicapped preboards, the gate agent invited Business Class to board.  LOL since it was an all Economy flight.  Nevertheless Mrs. SFO777 and I and a couple others cut to the front of the line.   OK, that worked pretty well... until we got an error message that our 1C had been assigned to another pax. Say what?  After much discussing between gate agents, we finally settled for 1D and 3C and boarded. 

Once on board, if finally dawned on us as to what happened. Some fat old DYKWIA political type and his Imelda Marcos-like wife and their entourage had apparently got someone at Air Malta to bounce us from our seats. Imelda was sitting in Mrs. SFO777's original 1F and fatso was sitting in 1D even though he was apparerntly assigned 1C.  I mentioned the seating issue to the pleasant Lithuanian FA and he told us to just take 1A and 1C and he'd work it out.  Better for us since we now had even more legroom.  We squatted there and decided we weren't moving anywhere. In the end, we got the last laugh as someone sat in 1E in between fatso and Imelda.

OK, now that's legroom.

I did move from 1C to 1B when the woman who was originally assigned 1B arrived.  

Said fatso.

We boarded 30 minutes late and were then delayed another 30 minutes as there was a head count issue... 165 vs. 166.  Lots of discussion about how to proceed with gate agent deciding to go row by row to check boarding passes.  OMG, this will take another hour.  Mercifully, she gave up after row 4 and decided that 165 and 166 were close enough today for Italy. 

And Imelda.  LOL.

Our seatmate stored her bag between her feet in front of her, which apparently is permitted in Lithuania.

After a short taxi, we were in the air and on our way.

Our FA's were quick to action after takeoff, rolling our the cart and handing out bottled water and a snack.

OK, what the heck is that?

I don't think so.  Yikes.

Approach to Malta.

As soon as we pulled into our parking position, I jumped up and headed back to row 3 to retrieve our bags.   Imelda did not look happy as people were now in her space.

No jet bridges at MLA so everyone heads for the buses.