ITA, or Italy Air Transport, officially launched after
bankrupt flag carrier Alitalia landed its final flights Thursday night, ending
a 74-year business history that a series of financial crises had marred in
recent years.
Protests and strikes accompanied the runup to Alitalia’s
formal demise because the much smaller ITA Airways is only hiring around a
quarter of Alitalia’s more than 10,000 employees. Negotiations with unions are
ongoing.
ITA paid 90 million euros (over $104 million) for the rights
to the Alitalia brand and website, but the new airline is called ITA Airways
and it has its own website and a new frequent flier program, called “Volare”
(“Fly”).
“Discontinuity doesn’t mean denying the past, but evolving
to keep up with the times,” ITA President Alfredo Altavilla said in a
statement.
During a conference launching the airline, Altavilla
insisted that the greatly reduced size of ITA — its slimmer fleet, workforce
and destinations — make it a viable carrier that can compete with low-cost
airlines while offering better service, connections and value.
“ITA Airways is being born right-sized, in the optimal
dimensions both in terms of the size of its fleet and its destinations,” he
said. “We don’t carry with us the negative inheritance of being too big that
conflict with the economic reality.”
He bristled when asked about reported predictions by
low-cost carriers of ITA Airways’ failure.
“They might be very, absolutely right that this is gonna be
difficult for us, but I am really curious to see one day their PnL (Profits and
Loss) and their balance sheet without all the subsidies that they are getting
from the local institutions and the small airports here in Italy,” Altavilla
said.
“I want a level playing field,” he added.
The first ITA flight was the 6:20 a.m. from Milan’s Linate
airport to the Italian city of Bari, on the Adriatic Sea. In all, ITA is flying
to 44 destinations and aims to increase that number to 74 in four years.
Among its routes, the company plans to operate flights to
New York from Milan and Rome, and to Tokyo, Boston and Miami from Rome.
European destinations from Rome and Milan’s Linate airport will also include
Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Geneva and Frankfurt, Germany. Routes to
South America and Los Angeles are planned.
ITA planes will be royal blue with Alitalia’s trademark
“tricolore” on the tail, reflecting the red, white and green of the Italian
flag. The Italian national sports team colors are blue, and company officials
said Friday that the color scheme chosen for the new aircraft aims to make ITA
“azzurri,” — the team nickname — too.
For now, the new blue Airbus aircraft exists only in
advertisements, with Alitalia’s old white fleet actually in the skies.
Officials were coy about possible partnerships with other
airlines. Previously, Alitalia was a member of the SkyTeam alliance, which
included Delta, Air France and KLM, among other airlines.
ITA has 52 planes that it says will grow to 105 in the same
period and is pointing to next-generation aircraft that use sustainable,
alternative fuel sources.
The company launched with 2,800 employees — 70% of them from
Alitalia — and said it expects to increase the size of its workforce to 5,750
by 2025.