First take-off of Ita, the new company that will take over from Alitalia, today at 6.20 in Milan Linate destination Bari. On the first day, 191 flights will be operated by the new company led by CEO Fabio Lazzerini and president Alfredo Altavilla: 24 national and 56 international.
Although most of the flights will be operated between Rome and Milan, on the first day of Ita’s activity, we will also fly to international destinations: 3 flights will be operated from Milan to Brussels, three from Milan to Paris, two from Rome to Amsterdam and two to Paris, one from Rome to Frankfurt, Munich, London, Madrid, Nice, Tunis. In flight there will also be the plane with the celebratory livery born in 2021.
The new company that takes over from Alitalia today will start with a total of 52 aircraft and 2,800 employees and for now only with the ‘aviation’ branch. The maintenance and handling branches of Alitalia, in fact, will be tendered at a later date by the extraordinary administration. The future of the company will not be ‘stand alone’, as the president of Ita Altavilla underlined in recent days: “Ita’s destiny is to be integrated into large groups on condition of equal dignity with the other members of the company. alliance and not as it happened in the past to Alitalia to be treated as the poor relative of the alliance “. The decision on joining a new alliance, with Skyteam or Star Alliance, could come within the first quarter of 2022 in view of the start of a possible collaboration as early as the summer.
Today Ita, as foreseen by the industrial plan approved in July, will start with a fleet of 52 aircraft, 7 of which are wide body and 45 narrow body but already in 2022 growth is expected to reach 78 aircraft (+26 on 2021) of which 13 are wide body (+6 on 2021) and 65 narrow body (+20 on 2021). From 2022, the introduction of new generation aircraft in the fleet is expected to begin, which will progressively replace the old technology aircraft. At the end of 2025 the fleet will grow to 105 aircraft (23 wide body and 82 narrow body), with 81 new generation aircraft (77% of the total fleet) to significantly reduce the environmental impact and optimize costs.
The operations, therefore, will begin with 2,800 employees who have been hired after screening of the 30,000 applications received. The number of employees should rise to reach 5,550-5,700 people by the end of the plan in 2025. Should Ita win the tenders announced by Alitalia in Extraordinary Administration relating to the ‘Ground Handling’ and ‘Maintenance’ activities, at the conclusion of the plan, up to 2,650-2,700 resources will be used for the ‘Ground Handling’ part. and of 1,100-1,250 resources in the area relating to maintenance.
The start-up of Ita operations will be concentrated for the most part on routes chosen on the basis of their profitability, plus a selected number of routes which, even if not immediately profitable, are considered investments to ensure a sustainable presence in the medium-term markets. interest in the country. Ita will focus its activities on the Fiumicino hub and on the Milan Linate airport, where it will position itself as the reference airline for business and leisure traffic.
At the start of operations, the company will serve 45 destinations with 61 routes that will rise to 74 destinations and 89 routes in 2025, at the conclusion of the rebalancing process of flights to the long-haul sector which aims to bridge the connectivity gap. of the country. In the long haul, in the Iata Winter 2021 season Ita will operate connections to New York (from Rome and Milan), Tokyo Haneda, Boston and Miami (all three from Rome), but already with the Iata Summer 2022 season the company plans to start new flights to Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Washington and Los Angeles.
On the short and medium haul Ita plans to operate at the departure connections from Fiumicino and Linate with the main European destinations plus numerous other international routes served by Rome (including, for example, those for Madrid, Athens, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Tunis and Algiers). On the domestic network, Ita will guarantee a broad coverage of national airports, serving 21 airports in the country with stable flight operations and a number of frequencies and timetables that best meet the needs of business and leisure customers.