Alitalia will initially be state-owned according to Transport Minister Stefano Patuanelli according to a report by Reuters.
The reorganized flag carrier will be relaunched in June with “over 90 planes”.
Italy was unable to find a buyer, hence the relaunch.
From Reuters:
“Speaking before a parliamentary committee for transport, the minister said the government would create a new company at the beginning of June that would take 100% of the airline.
“The new Alitalia will start with a fleet of more than 90 aircraft compared with its current 113 airplanes,” Patuanelli said, denying reports the fleet could be cut to 30 planes.”
Alitalia continues to ease return home for thousands of compatriots stranded abroad. Since Sunday 15 March, Alitalia has operated special flights with the Maldives, Warsaw, Sofia and Kiev in collaboration with the Crisis Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, allowing hundreds of Italian citizens to return to their places of residence. In addition, over 200 passengers disembarked from a cruise returned to Italy on Monday with an Alitalia flight from Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe).
Alitalia has planned further special flights to and from those countries where normal scheduled flights are no longer possible, due to the restrictions imposed on air traffic with Italy. A flight to repatriate compatriots from Morocco will take off on Thursday 19 March, two services from Tunisia and Romania will depart on Friday 20 March and a flight from Algeria on Saturday 21 March. Passengers who need to travel on these special flights can purchase tickets on alitalia.com website or, where required by the country’s regulations, they can contact the Italian embassies and local consulates.
At the same time, in line with the mission of ensuring an essential public service, Alitalia will operate three daily services on the London Heathrow-Rome route until 3 April in order to allow many Italian citizens still remaining in the United Kingdom, to come back to Italy.
Alitalia is also working with the Crisis Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on new requests for special flights.
Following the today Decree of the Italian President of the Council of Ministers, which includes new measures for the containment of Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Alitalia informs that it has implemented a plan to reorganize flights to and from Milan (Linate and Malpensa) and Venice airports. The plan comes on the heels of the reductions already undertaken by the Airline in recent days as a consequence of the drop of passengers due to the increased number of restrictions and travelers’ lower propensity to circulation.
During the period indicated by the Decree, therefore until April 3, Alitalia will operate the following changes at flights. The airline will operate from March 9 only national services from Milan Linate airport, reducing the number of flights on the domestic routes, while services on international routes will be guaranteed via Rome Fiumicino airport.
As from March 9, the Italian airline will suspend any national and international service to and from Milan Malpensa airport. The last Alitalia service for Milan Malpensa airport will be flight AZ 605 from New York which will land in Malpensa at 10:40 am tomorrow morning.
Furthermore, Alitalia will continue to operate flights between Venice and Rome with a reduction in number of services.
Alitalia is offering to travelers affected by reorganization of flights change fee waiver for rebooking their travel, as described on alitalia.com website.
Alitalia with an horizon to 2020, beyond short-term corporate futures, sees it with a positioning that increases the importance of trying to upgrade or open flights that generate money from corporate customers.
Fabio Maria Lazzerini – Chief Business Officer – has made us understand this by giving the trade press some insight about the future.
In 2020 the airline should continue to grow. In November it stands at more than 5% growth. I December it is valued at more than 7%. The closure of Linate has lost traffic a little bit.
Milan Linate, however, remains the second focal point for the carrier, where shuttles will gradually expand.
“After Rome Fiumicino, London and the recently added Paris, I see in Catania a possibility of shuttles with high business characterization.
Rome will see adjustments on market trends. We are evaluating two or three other European cities, such as Brussels, Madrid and Düsseldorf, where to introduce the Shuttle product, because there is corporate traffic mainly and one that flies by in the morning and back in the evening ”.
Flights to Germany will also increase in two-day flights on Stuttgart and Cologne from next summer. In addition to Hamburg, which returns on a daily basis.
In the Milan area there is good success in Bergamo, because it has point to point and international and intercontinental flows of passengers in both directions.
The same thing is for Milan Malpensa. “There will be no further expansion on Malpensa, because the spirit is in line with the decision of the past to make hub in Fiumicino and therefore we will always try to bring more and more passengers to Rome” said Lazzerini.
A new pricing concept on national routes is being tested on four destinations from Rome: Genoa, Turin, Venice and Reggio Calabria. On these four lines the three types of rates allow us to be also in the various tariff classes and therefore with or without luggage, depending on the period, it is possible to find something convenient subject to availability. The experiment, which is giving success, will soon pass on other routes, above all Sicily. And then to follow towards all the Italian domestic. We are seeing that there is feedback and the average tariff is also rising. There is therefore satisfaction and profitability increases.
The recent agreement with Azul is the continuation of what it has been doing for some time, that is, to have agreements of this type that increase Alitalia penetration in many markets that cannot be served directly. But above all have also important profitability from these opportunities, whether they are new or already existing with re-debates that allow to increase the profit index for every single segment flown.
“Alliances bring benefits, but not always, flying together can often be a boomerang for us, because the partner can collect our customers and make them their own.” Lazzerini says “Azul therefore makes sense, but we are already still looking at central and southern America where we have unique point to point flights. Brazil is the third largest market for Alitalia after Italy and the USA. Brazil is going a head to head with Japan.
The very close partnership with All Nippon (ANA) is growing and today with Kenya Airways it will present the route Rome – Nairobi, where last week we signed a very important and even more profitable agreement in a substantial part of Africa. “So not so many alliances, even if we have many, where we need to increase our earnings, protecting our traffic. In the past, alliances were established that then paved the way for the landing and were more a gain for others than for Alitalia ”- says Lazzerini.
Lazzerini is very attentive to the profitability factor. Alitalia being a carrier positioned in the lower part of medium-sized airlines, the way to grow is to take those customers who pay. Few but good is the concept. Therefore the medium-high corporate and leisure individual segment.
Politics changed for example on Japan, which lost money until two years ago with full planes in both Magnifica and economic. Now it also carries the groups, but at higher prices, favoring the corporate trying to sell in the last 4 weeks and not filling up first. In addition to having expanded the inventory strategy of business travelers and looking for it as a traveler.
“The strategy has been to dry the leisure traffic that does not pay for the benefit of the individual corporate and leisure segment” and stresses Lazzerini. “Unlike the Indian Ocean towards Mauritius and the Maldives, it has a passenger who pays and stays in facilities with which we are intended as Beachcomber in Mauritius ”.
In addition to the fact that Alitalia does actions on foreign markets, that using Rome in transit allows for well-paying passengers arriving from Europe. Lazzerini continues – “success is economic due to the excellent performance of profitability, thanks to the good times and the direct service, immediately producing volumes made us gain important market shares immediately.
Some competitors started with very aggressive intentions, they are drying their weekly frequencies “.
Mauritius and the Maldives work also thanks to the historic agreement signed by Alitalia with ASTOI – Italian tour operating association -, where in the past there was a few problems and not wanting to raise the walls it turned into a collaboration that led the tour operators on flights with a leisure traffic very good individual as a spending band. Growth was 20-25% year on year. Alitalia has taken European legacy carriers off traffic and little, if any, to Italian leisure charter carriers.
Alitalia will not engage in the Caribbean market except for MSC charters, due to the wider seasonality and markets heavily covered by charter carriers. For regular fleet operators they do not marry as for Mauritius and Maldives limited from November to April, the Caribbean also asks for part of the summer where planes fly to the USA.
Little or no intention to serve ethnic traffic, “it is a market that fills empty chairs in the low season, but does not bring so many economic benefits” says Lazzerini, on the contrary on cargo traffic “two years ago we made an important decision and that is to say to bring the holds back home. Before it was run by Etihad, we no longer had the management and sales structure, IT systems and customer inventory. Today, after two years of hard work, we have increased turnover by over 30%, we have absorbed human resources in redundancy funds, who now work in the freight service. Even the long-haul flight holds are filling the empty spaces left in the past. As well there is’ feeder from Europe to Rome or vice versa. Or from Europe to domestic Italy via Linate. Pharma certification for pharmaceutical products leads us to carry drugs that make many times more money than ordinary goods “. In the past, all this traffic traveled with foreign competitors.
All Airbus A321s will be released from the fleet for a total of 9 aircraft. In addition to the three (two A330s, presumably the former Etihad and a Boeing 777-300ER).
Therefore the fleet will be based on the Boeing 777-200ERs and Airbus A330-200s, on the short haul the Airbus A320s, A319s and Embraers).
“Alitala coming from three failures cannot acquire planes,” says Lazzerini and as announced a few days ago will try to increase the flown to double figure for long-haul and almost short-haul aircraft. The output of the 200-seat A321s is for airframe life limit.
Alitalia will add Alitalia CityLiner Embraer 175 daily service between Milan (Linate) and Geneva starting on September 3, 2018 according to Airline Route.
Alitalia is planning to add two new routes from Palermo starting on June 1, 2018 according to Airline Route. The carrier will add daily Airbus A319 domestic service from Palermo to both Bologna and Venice.
The carrier is also adding seasonal weekly service from Milan (Linate) to Stockholm (Arlanda) on May 12, 2018.
Etihad Airways (Abu Dhabi), its airport services business and five of its equity partners have successfully completed an innovative new platform financing transaction, raising $500 million on the international markets.
According to the group, “Etihad Airways, Etihad Airport Services, Airberlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Alitalia and Jet Airways have together taken a new step forward in their strategic business development through this unique fund-raising initiative.”
The group continued:
“At a series of roadshow meetings, held in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and London, the shared vision and strategies of the airlines were laid out to financial institutions. These highlighted the growing network coordination and revenue development initiatives, coupled with joint procurement and business synergy projects, across the airlines.”
Allocation of the funds raised will be nearly 20 percent each to Etihad Airways, Etihad Airport Services, Airberlin and Alitalia; 16 percent to Jet Airways; and the remainder to Air Serbia and Air Seychelles.
The funds raised by the transaction will be used largely for capital expenditure and investment in fleet, as well as for refinancing, depending on each individual airline’s needs.
The transaction marks the first time that Etihad Airways and its partners have raised funds together. To date, Etihad Airways has already raised in excess of $11 billion (US) from more than 80 financial institutions, to help fund its expansion strategy.
The funds have been raised through a special purpose vehicle, EA Partners IBV. Goldman Sachs International, ADS Securities and Anoa Capital are acting as joint lead book-running managers for the offering.
Copyright Photo: SPA/AirlinersGallery.com. Etihad Airways’ Airbus A380-861 A6-APA (msn 166) departs from London (Heathrow).
Alitalia (3rd) (Rome) is upset about the airport’s continued focus of attracting low-cost operators at its Rome Fiumicino (FCO) hub and the current neglect for the infrastructure. The flag carrier is now threatening to move its hub elsewhere. The airline issued this statement about the current situation at FCO:
The damage to Alitalia by the consequences of the fire which broke out on May 7 at Fiumicino Airport amounted to 80 million Euros to date.
The recent reopening of Terminal 3 has marked the end of the emergency phase but not the end of many problems and limitations that continue have heavy effects on airport operations. Alitalia will calculate the total amount of damages only when the airport will operate at pre-fire standards.
Alitalia is the only airline to have its hub in Fiumicino. About 50% of the total number of flights in Fiumicino are Alitalia. Alitalia is by far the airline most affected from the consequences of the fire.
“We had a difficult period due to an event that affected us deeply. – declared Silvano Cassano, Chief Executive Officer of Alitalia -. In this period we have given up any controversy and we focused entirely on the service to customers, to reduce the inconvenience.”
Alitalia has completed an initial balance of the damages for the cancellation of thousands of flights and for a multitude of operational problems that have highlighted the fragility of the airport infrastructure as a whole. Alitalia will seek compensation for the damage it sustained, which so far totals 80 million euro.
“Our relaunch plan is complex, and in one of the most competitive sectors in Italy and in the world – continues Cassano – Fiumicino Airport in its current state is not an appropriate infrastructure to serve as the hub of an airline with our ambitions“.
“The problems of Fiumicino come from years and years of inadequate investment and planning and are now structural, we hope there will be less attention to finance and more attention to the market and to passengers needs”.
“If Fiumicino will continue to focus on low cost carriers and mediocre services, Alitalia will be forced to shift its growth elsewhere”.
Top Copyright Photo: Marco Finelli/AirlinersGallery.com. Boeing 777-243 ER EI-DBL (msn 32781) arrives at the FCO hub wears special “Franciacorta” markings as a salute to Alitalia’s Expo 2015 partner.
Alitalia (3rd) (Rome today (June 4) introduced a new livery reflecting the new ownership group.
The airline issued this statement, images and videos:
Alitalia today introduced its new brand, new aircraft livery and new visual identity to its employees, to the worldwide media, and to key business and institutional stakeholders.
The new developments were unveiled at a major launch event at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, for more than 1,500 Alitalia staff, who were joined by a special guest of honor, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
The airline also announced product upgrades across all classes of service on its international wide-body fleet with the aim of repositioning itself on the world stage as a leader in superior service and a powerful ambassador for Italy.
The new developments mark a major milestone for Italy’s national airline, as it revitalises its business across all areas of its global operations.
“The new livery (above) presented today marks a major milestone in the history of one of the most iconic Italian brands in the world,” said Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Chairman of Alitalia.
“We have also unveiled the results of the outstanding work to create more comfortable interiors and to introduce a strong, innovative service culture.
“Alitalia’s livery is universally associated with Italy and viewed as iconic and highlyrecognised.
However, it was clear that it needed to evolve to bring Alitalia into the 21st century in a way that could meet our ambitious objectives and the most demanding market expectations.
“What you see here today is classic Italian style projected into the future with a modern, fresh feel. It is about reconnecting Alitalia with Italy, and promoting Italy in the world. Our entire company is dedicated to working together to make this happen.”
After 46 years, the green band will disappear from the fuselage for the first time. At the core of the new livery is a larger tricolour ‘A’ tailfin, which serves as a powerful representation of the Italian flag across the world. A more modern typeface and non-Italic style conveys the confidence and assertiveness of the new Alitalia.
A warm ivory fuselage adds an element of Italian style and elegance to the scheme, and a sense of speed is created by a refined series of bands progressively leading towards the rear of the aircraft.
The vibrant and contemporary new branding will also feature in the cabin décor of Alitalia’s modern fleet of Airbus, Boeing and Embraer aircraft, allowing for fresher, more stylish, and uniquely Italian interiors which now feature the type of fine detailing and design associated with luxury sports cars.
Leading Italian brands will be largely represented on board, starting from the new Poltrona Frau leather design on Business Class seats, Frette bedding, Richard Ginori tableware and Ferragamo amenity kits.
The new inflight experience places considerable emphasis on greater customer choice, innovation, quality, and importantly, more personal control over how guests relax, dine and are entertained on board.
Starting from today, Wi-fi connectivity will progressively be made available on all long-haul aircraft, together with revamped movie galleries and inflight entertainment.
Silvano Cassano, Alitalia Chief Executive Officer, said: “Just as our new livery simplifies, clarifies and improves our Alitalia logo, so our new service concept simplifies, clarifies and improves our customer offer. It is about putting our guests right at the heart of what we do.
“We have developed this new concept in a way which delivers and showcases the best of Italian style and hospitality, while also taking inspiration from the centres of excellence around the Etihad Partners network.
“The result is a service concept which incorporates global best practice but which does so with a uniquely ‘Alitalian’ flavor.”
According to Mr Cassano, the key driver of success for the new Alitalia would be the company’s loyal and experienced employees.
“The business is now entering a new era. Our current investment in training is unprecedented in the history of Alitalia, involving thousands of Alitalia people, to ensure they have the tools to deliver the highest standards in the industry.”
James Hogan, Vice Chairman of Alitalia and President and Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Airways, said: “The old Alitalia was a great brand but a challenged business. Now we are well on the way to seeing the rebirth of this iconic airline, in a new era of commercial success.
“The steps taken by Alitalia’s senior management team over the last five months are to be applauded. What we see here today is a business growing in confidence. The future is bright for the new Alitalia.”
The new livery Airbus A330 showcased today has been named Artemisia Gentileschi after a 17th century Italian artist. She is regarded as one of the most progressive and talented artists of her generation, and the embodiment of courage and human dignity.
The A330-200 aircraft will operate its first flight from Rome to Abu Dhabi on June 5 and return back to Milan.
The announcement follows a highly successful first five months of partnership with minority shareholder Etihad Airways, which has already seen over 70,000 guests shared between the airlines on their growing codeshare operations. In addition to the revenue boost from new direct and codeshare routes, Alitalia will also benefit from widespread non-revenue synergies which will be worth more than US$ 15 million in 2015. These synergies will be complemented by investment in shared technology solutions and ongoing sharing of ‘best practice’ between both airlines.
