New Airline Acquires 75-Year-Old Alitalia

Italy’s new national airline, ITA Airways, flew its inaugural flights Friday and unveiled its brand and logo, recycling the red, white, and green of its Alitalia origins as it tries to chart a new future while competing with low-cost airlines, Nicole Winfield reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: The State Office in Washington D.C., United States (placed in the photo)

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 run-up 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.”

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