Showing posts with label Alitalia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alitalia. Show all posts

01 April, 2022

ITA to lease 10 Airbus A320neo and 2 A330neo jets from AerCap


The new Italian airline resurected from the ashes of Alitalia, ITA has signed a deal to lease 12 Airbus aircraft from global leasing firm AerCap.

The long-term lease deal is for 10 new Airbus A320neo aircraft and 2 new Airbus A330neo aircraft with the first of the planes due to be delivered at the start of 2023 and the last before the end of 2024.  

Francesco Presicce, Chief Technology Officer of ITA Airways, said: "The integration of these new aircraft is perfectly in line with the Company's fleet plan. This agreement represents a further step in our strategy of building a new environmental-friendly fleet with leadingedge technologies which will optimize efficiency, quality of service and significantly reduce the environmental impact. ITA Airways places the best customer service at the centre of its strategy with a strong focus on sustainability. The collaboration with AerCap allows us to improve cost efficiencies across our fleet. I wish to thank the AerCap team for their cooperation."

Peter Anderson, Chief Commercial Officer of AerCap, said, "We are very pleased to expand our relationship with ITA Airways through the lease of these twelve advanced-technology Airbus A320neo and A330neo aircraft.  These aircraft will enable ITA Airways to expand its network, whilst advancing its commitment to maintain an environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient fleet. We thank the team at ITA Airways for the confidence they have placed in AerCap, and we look forward to building the partnership for many years to come."


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15 July, 2021

ITA to take off in mid-October after EU deal

 ITA to take off in mid-October after EU deal
by Giuseppe Fonte/Angelo Amante



The new Italian airline, Italia Trasporto Aereo (ITA) will replace state-owned Alitalia and start flying in mid-October after Italy reached a long-awaited deal with the European Commission following months of haggling over the fate of the old, loss-making airline.

The negotiations focused on making ITA independent of Alitalia to ensure it was not liable for paying back billions of euros the old carrier had received in state aid, reports Reuters. 

ITA, which will be fully operational from Oct. 15, said in a statement it will aim to raise initial capital of 700 million euros ($826.70 million) to buy assets from the old company and begin operating.

Following the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline industry, demand is beginning to recover but companies are still grounding many aircraft or flying nearly empty

The new airline, which was initially supposed to start operating in April, said it expected revenue of just above 3.3 billion euros in 2025. It added it would reach earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 209 million euros and a break-even by the third quarter of 2023.

24 April, 2021

Alitalia worker strike cancels flights at Rome’s airport

Photo Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP


Hundreds of workers from Italian airline Alitalia protested outside Rome’s international airport Friday during a four-hour strike against what they see as plans to destroy the long-struggling carrier, reports AP.

The Italian government is negotiating with the European Union on what aid it can provide loss-making Alitalia and is running up against stiff demands for “economic discontinuity” as the government creates a trimmed down new company to replace the bankrupt entity.

The EU’s conditions include demands to stop using the Alitalia name, give up slots at Milan’s Linate airport and sell off the luggage handling and maintenance parts of the business to third parties to concentrate on aviation, according to Italian media reports.

04 February, 2021

Delta and Alitalia codeshare deal on COVID tested flights......













Delta Air Lines and partner Alitalia are now codesharing on COVID-tested flights, offering customers quarantine-free entry to Italy’s capital city from the U.S. Effective immediately, essential travelers can book to fly on Alitalia’s dedicated COVID-tested service from New York-JFK and Delta’s COVID-tested service from Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.

“Offering codeshares on our COVID-tested routes between two of the largest airport hubs in the U.S. and Italy is the latest in Delta and Alitalia’s longstanding partnership of delivering choice and convenience for our customers,” said Perry Cantarutti, Delta’s senior vice president Alliances and International. “These pilot programs are creating a blueprint for COVID-safe, quarantine-free travel that combines rigorous testing with extensive cleanliness and hygiene measures to help reopen international travel on a broader scale and restart the global economy.”

06 July, 2020

Alitalia to operate 1000 weekly flights this month

Alitalia will increase number of flights and destinations served in July. During the month, the Airline will operate over 1,000 weekly flights reaching 13 new domestic and international airports: Amsterdam, Athens, Boston, Malta, Nice, Tel Aviv, Tirana, Tunis and in Italy Brindisi, Florence, Lampedusa, Pantelleria and Reggio Calabria.
Alitalia will operate 60% more flights compared to June and l double number of services compared to May. Alitalia aircraft will fly on 52 routes (22 more than June) to 37 airports, including 19 in Italy and 18 abroad. Seats offered in July will grow by 60% compared to the previous month.
The Alitalia flight schedule in July will mainly include the reopening of international air services from Milan and the increase of international flights from Rome, as well as the increase of services from Northern Italy to Southern Italy and the Italian islands.

05 July, 2020

Increase on Venice - Rome route


The Italian carrier Alitalia has doubled the number of frequencies on the Venice-Rome route, which remained active during the lockdown period of Italy for the pandemic from Covid-19.

Services between Venice and Fiumicino airport run from two to four a day, with the addition of a flight departing from the "Marco Polo" at 6:50 a.m. and another scheduled at 21:40 from Rome, in order to guarantee round-trip trips for those departing from Venice. The other flights on this route take off at 15:25 (from Venice) and 13:30 (from Rome).

In accordance with current legal requirements, all Alitalia aircraft are sanitized every day with products of high sanitizing power and, thanks to HEPA filters and vertical circulation, the air on board is not only renewed every three minutes, but is 99.7% pure, as in a sterile room.

All passengers are then required to hand over a self-certification prior to boarding which attests that they have not had close contact with people with Covid-19 pathology. Passengers must also wear a protective mask on their arrival at the airport and during the flight.







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23 June, 2020

Alitalia down to its last £210 million......

Alitalia had €232 million / £210 million in its accounts at May 31, according to Italian industry minister Stefano Patuanelli as the government prepares to take over the struggling airline.

The nationalisation of the loss-making business comes after 11 troubled years of private management and three failed restructuring attempts.

The government injected 400 million euros into Alitalia at the beginning of this year, after granting a bridge loan of 900 million euros in 2017, which was not paid back.

“As of May 31 the company had 232 million euros in liquidity ... revenue between January and May amounted to 505 million,” Patuanelli told a parliamentary hearing.

05 May, 2020

The last long-haul Alitalia route suspended

The beleaguered and virtually bankrupt Italian airline Alitalia has confirmed it will be axing its last long-haul route from today until the end of the month.

The Rome - New York route was the last long-haul operation the airline had going during the onset of the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis, but will also now be suspended, with some doubt whether it will ever resume.

Alitalia has been operating a fraction of its usual 500 flights daily during the current crisis, it experienced a 95% drop in passenger revenue during the first few weeks of April. The debt-riddled carrier is currently in the process of being renationalised after numerous attempts at finding a buyer have failed. 

FNTA - a federation of three Italian flight crew trade unions - said it opposed the suspension of the New York flight and wrote to government ministers and the airline's board on Monday. "We consider this decision to be absolutely inexplicable and unacceptable, both for commercial reasons and in general, because it deprives Italian citizens of the only direct connection still existing between Italy and the United States and diverts passengers to Air France-KLM," the letter reads.  





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24 April, 2020

Alitalia will be under government control in June.

The Italian Industry Minister Stefano Patuanelli has said the government will take full control of the financially struggling carrier Alitalia in June, adding the airline would have gone bust due to the coronavirus crisis otherwise. 


Alitalia has been run by state-appointed administrators since May 2017 and the difficulties caused by the pandemic came on top of deep-rooted financial problems for the business, scuppering an earlier plan to sell it to private investors.

The former national airline was founded shortly after World War Two and has long struggled for profitability. This latest move will put an end to 11 years of difficult private management, which included three failed restructuring attempts.

26 March, 2020

Over three and a half million face masks arrive in Italy



Face masks arrive in Italy. 

Alitalia’s AZ 9478 cargo flight from Shanghai will land in Rome Fiumicino airport tonight at 9.45 pm, with over 3.5 million of protective face masks stowed. The medical equipment will be sorted in the next few hours by the Italian Department of Civil Protection and sent to the areas most affected by the Covid-19 emergency.

This is the first of a series of non-stop cargo flights from China, and was operated with an Alitalia’s Boeing 777-300ER, the aircraft with the largest cargo capacity among the Airline’s fleet. Two complete crews were on board the aircraft and, in accordance with the provisions of the Italian Civil Aviation Authority on the flight duty period, they alternated service without the need of an overnight rest in Shanghai, in order to respect the restrictions put in force by the Chinese Authorities that impose the quarantine for travelers arriving from Italy.

In coordination with the Crisis Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alitalia continues to organize special flights in order to repatriate Italian citizens still stranded abroad. An Alitalia’s Boeing 777-200ER is leaving today for India and will return to Italy tomorrow morning, 27 March, at 7.45 am carrying about 300 Italian citizens. Another aircraft, an Airbus 330, will take off today in order to retrieve 250 passengers, disembarked from a cruise in Miami, who will arrive at Rome Fiumicino airport on the early morning of Saturday 28 March.

Alitalia has also extended special flights from Madrid to Rome until tomorrow 27 March, in order to continue to repatriate as many Italian citizens still stuck in Spain as possible. Another special flight from Budapest (Hungary) has been organized for Saturday 28 March and in the next few hours tickets for this special air service will be available on alitalia.com website.

Alitalia carried between 15 and 25 March a total of 60,000 passengers, 90 per cent of them on flights returning to Italy from abroad. In these ten days, 15,000 travelers have been able to come back to Italy thanks to the 140 special flights operated by Alitalia in coordination with the Crisis Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.







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25 March, 2020

Alitalia transports two million protective face masks from Brazil

Two million face protective masks arrived at Rome Fiumicino airport this morning at 6.23 am on board Alitalia flight AZ 675 from Sao Paulo (Brazil). The shipment, which weighs 5.7 tons, will be delivered to hospitals located in the Italian region of Piedmont.







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23 March, 2020

Alitalia to operate medical freight services from China to Italy

Alitalia has prepared, in coordination with the Department of Civil Protection, the first of a series of freight flights with China for the transport of medical material necessary for the management of the Covid-19 emergency by national hospitals.

For this first humanitarian flight, Alitalia will use a Boeing 777-300ER, the airline with the largest load capacity of the Company, which will take off next Wednesday to Shanghai and return to Rome on Thursday 26 March with stowed 160 cubic meters of medical supplies, including approximately 3 million protective masks.

The delegation of 37 Cuban doctors and 15 nurses for whom Alitalia has organized the journey from Havana to Italy will land today at 18:10 in Milan Malpensa, accepting the request of the Prime Minister and Civil Protection.







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15 March, 2020

Alitalia to operate special repatriation flights

Alitalia is putting in place a number of special flights in order to facilitate the return home for thousands of compatriots. The Italian airline will also continue to fly to the countries that have ordered restrictive measures for Italian citizens and for travellers who have stayed in Europe.


A special Alitalia flight to the Maldives will take off on the evening of Monday 16 March. To respect the Maldivian entry ban for Italians, the aircraft will make a technical stop in Cairo airport in order to alternate flight crews. In fact, pilots and flight attendants have already left for Egypt and, entering into service from Cairo, they will be able to guarantee a flight to and from Male without getting off the plane, in compliance with the aeronautical regulations on flight duty period. The Boeing 777 will arrive in the Maldives, without passengers on board, at 1:15 pm local time on 17 March and return at Rome Fiumicino airport is scheduled at midnight on 18 March.

14 March, 2020

Alitalia tells passengers they must have breathing masks if they want to fly.

The Italian airline, Alitalia has instigated a new rule for all passengers - if they want to fly they must wear a breathing mask from before they board the aircraft.

The measure comes into force with immediate effect and is part of the protocols to fight against infection that has been adopted by Alitalia following consultation with Italian Authorities. Alitalia could, therefore, deny boarding to passengers who are not in possession of the personal protective devices. Alitalia recommends travellers to wear protective breathing mask also at airports and during boarding and disembarking from aircraft.

The new safety procedure comes on the heels of the other extraordinary measures adopted by Alitalia to protect the health of travellers and employees, sometimes also through the redesign of the onboard service. Furthermore, in order to limit the spread of COVID-19, Alitalia has increased the cleaning activities on its entire fleet, with daily disinfection and sanitation of all the surfaces in the aircraft cabins.

The airline says its aircraft fleet is equipped with hospital-grade high-efficiency particulate (HEPA) filters which ensure 99.7% cleaning of the cabin air and completely exchange with fresh air thirty times per hour.





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08 March, 2020

Lufthansa Group among a number of airlines cancelling all flights to Israel due to new entry regulations

All flights to Tel Aviv and Eilat will be cancelled as of next Sunday for the next three weeks
Lufthansa cancels over 7,100 European flights in March 
The extended refusal of entry of the Israeli authorities, introduced from 6 March to among others also for travellers from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, will lead to a considerable drop in demand for flights to Israel. As a result, Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines will cancel all their flights to Tel Aviv and Eilat as of Sunday 8 March 2020 for the remaining winter timetable period until 28 March. The Lufthansa Group sees itself forced to make this cancellation for economic and operational reasons, as many passengers are no longer entitled to enter the country.

All airlines mentioned above usually offer a total of ten daily flights to Tel Aviv, in addition, Lufthansa has one scheduled weekly service to Eilat.

The Lufthansa Group is not alone in cancelling or planning to axe flights to Israel due to the new regulations introduced, which are said to be the strictest in the world. Israel has already imposed the same restrictions to flights from Italy, China and Singapore. The IAG's Spanish airline, Iberia, usually operates seven flights a week to Israel has confirmed it will axe flights to Tel Aviv until at least the end of the March - “Due to Israeli Interior Ministry directives banning citizens from a number of countries, including Spain, we are forced to temporarily suspend flights to Tel Aviv,” the carrier said in a statement. Alitalia has stopped all flights between 11th and 29th March. Low-cost airline Wizz is currently reducing flights to Tel Aviv because of a lack of demand, whilst British Airways is understood to be currently reviewing its Israeli schedule as the ban on non-residents entering the country is expected to be expanded to the UK early next week. 

The heavy restrictions will have a massive negative impact on the nations tourist industry, which is already facing difficulty. Local analysts indicate that a raft of bankruptcies in the incoming tourist industry is to be expected before the end of April. Many commentators have also indicated that the introduction of travel restrictions has more political reasoning that public safety.


Lufthansa: 7,100 European flights cancelled in March

19 February, 2020

Alitalia sees a growth passengers and revenue in January

Photo Alitalia 
The growth in passenger traffic revenues and the number of travellers carried by Alitalia last year also continues in the first month of 2020.

The Italian company reported revenues of 180.35 million euros in January this year, an increase of 4.1% compared to the same month in 2019 (and 8.2% on January 2018), in the face of a 4.2% decrease in capacity offered. This is good news for the financially troubled carrier that faces an uncertain future, although the recent demise of rival airline Air Italy, has given the state-funded carrier some breathing space. 

The results were also positive as regards the number of passengers transported, which in January 2020 rose by 2.9% compared to the same month of the previous year. Overall, 1,480,504 passengers flew with Alitalia in the first month of this year, with a load factor of 74.4%, an increase of 3.7 percentage points compared to January of last year .

24 January, 2020

2019 in Alitalia's eyes.......

The financially troubled Italian carrier Alitalia closed 2019 with growth in both passenger traffic revenues (+ 1.7%) and long-haul passengers (+ 4.7%).  It was also a year also characterized by excellent operating performances has seen the carrier establish itself as the second most punctual airline in Europe and the seventh in the world. Yet,  even with these advances in operational performance, the financial situation is not as rosy and the future is most certainly not secure. 

07 January, 2020

The future of Alitalia could be in German hands........

 The future of the loss-making debt-riddled Italian national carrier Alitalia could be turned around and in German hands, if Lufthansa gets its way with a partnership deal. 

A commercial tie-up between the German carrier and Italian airline would boost revenues at Alitalia by at least €100 million a year in the medium term, a Lufthansa executive said on today. Lufthansa needs a hub in Southern Europe and Rome’s Fiumicino airport could be the right one, Joerg Eberhart, the president and CEO of Lufthansa’s unit Air Dolomiti, told Italy’s Chamber of Deputies Transport Committee in a hearing.

He added that Alitalia should join Lufthansa in the Star Alliance, the world’s largest group of carriers, that allows them to cooperate in marketing routes and pricing to travellers. Eberhart earlier on Tuesday told the committee that Lufthansa offered Alitalia a commercial partnership but was not ready to invest in it, reported Reuters. 

Eberhart also said what commentators in the airline industry have been saying for months, "We are convinced that a profound restructuring of Alitalia is inevitable. - Only in this way will it be gain the time needed and starting from a position of strength will have a free choice between the three strongest systems in Europe, Lufthansa, IAG and Air France,".

Alitalia has 'burned up around €300 million a year during the period of extraordinary administration the firm has been in for the last three or so years. According to recent statements by the Italian Industry Minister Stefano Patuanelli there will be no more government money for the airline, which if no buyer or investor is found could end flying operations by the middle of the year. 







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05 December, 2019

Alitalia signs codeshare deal with Brazil's Azul just days after another bailout from Italian government

The Italian flag carrier Alitalia has signed a codeshare agreement with Azul Brazilian Airlines, the largest airline in Brazil by the number of cities served, the airlines confirmed on Wednesday 4th December. 

As part of this agreement, customers can conveniently connect to Azul’s unrivalled domestic network when flying Alitalia into and out of São Paulo (Guarulhos) and Rio de Janeiro (Galeão). 

Under the agreement, the codeshared network will include 19 domestic Brazilian destinations served by Azul in connection with Alitalia services to/from São Paulo (Guarulhos) and Rio de Janeiro (Galeão):  Belém, Porto Seguro, Brasilia, Cuiabá, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Fortaleza, Goiânia, Foz do Iguaçu, Ilhéus, Navegantes, Porto Alegre, Ribeirão Preto, Recife, Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont, Salvador, Vitória and Campinas-Viracopos.

04 December, 2019

Alitalia sees a growth in passenger in November.

Alitalia reported a growth in passenger revenues and the number of travellers carried in November.  According to the preliminary figures of the eleventh month of this year, the Italian airline recorded 5 per cent increase in passenger revenues, compared to November 2018 and 13.7 per cent growth versus the same month of 2017.

In the first eleven months of 2019 passenger revenues increased by 1.6 per cent compared to the same period of the 2018 and by 8.8 per cent versus the first eleven months of 2017.

The number of passengers carried also shows positive results in November 2019, when the Italian airline reported 1.5 per cent increase compared to the same period of 2018 and 6.1 per cent growth versus November 2017.

Alitalia carried 1,676,868 passengers in November 2019 with a load factor equal to 77 per cent, increased by 3.2 percentage points versus the same month of 2018.

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