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Alitalia — Compagnia Aerea Italiana S.p.A.^[1] (Italian for Alitalia - Italian Air Company), operating as Alitalia, is an Italian airline, which took over the name, the landing rights, many planes and some other assets from the liquidation process of the old Alitalia-Linee Aeree Italiane and the entire Air One. The company has its head office in Rome, Italy.^[2] Their main hub is Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport, Rome.

Headquartered in Rome, it operates services to 25 domestic and 48 international destinations in 37 countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. Alitalia is the world's 19th largest passenger airline by fleet size.

History

On 26 August 2008 a group of Italian entrepreneurs along with Intesa Sanpaolo, one of the major Italian banks, founded Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) with the aim of buying the trademark and some of the assets of the bankrupt Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane and to merge these with Air One, another Italian carrier.

On 30 October 2008 CAI offered €1,100 million to acquire parts of the bankrupt airline. The offer was submitted to Alitalia's bankruptcy administrator despite refusal by some pilots and flight attendants' unions to agree to the rescue plan. The bankruptcy administrator and the Italian government, major shareholder of Alitalia, agreed to CAI's offer on 19 November 2008. Alitalia's profitable assets were transferred to CAI on 12 December 2008 after CAI paid €1.052 billion ($1.33 billion), consisting of €427 million in cash and the assumption of responsibility for €625 million in Alitalia debt. CAI then bought Air One as well and adopted the Alitalia trademark for the merged company. On 13 January 2009 the new Alitalia re-launched operations.

Air France-KLM shares

On 12 January 2009 the owners of Compagnia Aerea Italiana sold 25% of the company's shares to Air France-KLM for €322 million. Air France-KLM also obtained an option, subject to certain conditions, to purchase additional shares after 2013. The French as well as the Italian boards agreed to the sale.^[3]

Finance and load factors

Alitalia revealed that their load factor for the first quarter of 2009 was 51%, around 20% lower than major carriers like Air France, British Airways and Lufthansa who all varied from 70-75%.

Second quarter results show Alitalia with an increase in load factors rising from 51% to 65%, a 14% increase. ^[4]

In the first quarter of 2009, Alitalia announced they had lost €210 million, but in the second quarter they said they had lost €63 million, which shows a decrease in losses.^[5]

On 29 July 2009, Alitalia released financial report for their first 6 months of operations.^[6] Alitalia is the largest domestic airline in Italy, and the third airline for international flights from/to Italy.^[7]

Destinations

Alitalia serves 74 destinations, 25 domestic and 49 international, in 37 countries (at November 2009).^[8]

Incidents & Accidents

Although no major incidents or accidents have occured since Compagnia Aerea Italiana S.p.A. took over Alitalia-Linee Aeree Italiane, several such occurences have occured during the Airline's previous history.

Fleet

Current

The Alitalia fleet consists of the following aircraft (at 6 January 2010):^[9][10]

• On 17 March 2009, Alitalia received its first new aircraft since the merger with Air One, the aircraft was an Airbus A320-216 (EI-DTB).
• In May 2009, Alitalia painted one of their Boeing 767-300ER (EI-DBP) in a special SkyTeam livery.

Club Magnifica enhancement

Starting in November 2009, Alitalia will begin to upgrade their Club Magnifica class on all aircraft. The upgrade will consist of:

• New catering (regionally focused, including a new selected wine and spumante list which changes every month and in consultation with Italian Sommelier Association)
• New blankets / duvets / cushions / linens by Frette
• New amenity kits by Culti
• New china by Richard Ginori

MilleMiglia

The airline's frequent flyer program is named "MilleMiglia", and is part of the SkyTeam alliance program, allowing passengers to collect miles and redeem them with free tickets across the whole alliance.

References

External links

• Official website
• Aviazione Civile: Thread "News flotta Alitalia-CAI" - Italian language - First post continously updated with fleet composition