American companies (+ Emirates) ready to conquer Italy
Update, a few hours after publishing this article, official announcements arrived regarding the stop of the sale of the [...]
ITA Airways
Alitalia
Update, A few hours after publishing this article, official communications arrived regarding the Stop of ticket sales by Alitalia and the start of ITA sales.
There is still no news on the sale of ITA tickets., the newco that will take the place of Alitalia. The COA has been issued by ENAC, but it is not yet clear when airline ticket sales will begin or even what routes will be operational with the winter schedule and especially the summer schedule for the 2022 season.
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The only certainties are. the words written on ITA's business plan that Plans to restart with only 7 long-haul aircraft, this will bring a drastic reduction in the routes operated by the old Alitalia on long-haul, routes that were already few compared to the competition. Certainly there will be travel to New York/JFK, the old AZ operated 3 daily connections from Rome and one from Milan. In the best of predictions we can expect a daily connection from the Roman airport, maybe two in the very high season, but that would mean committing more than the 50% of aircraft to a single route.
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The old company's other routes to the States were the historic Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Washington had been added in 2019, and a flight to San Francisco was due to leave in 2020. Rome was also connected to Toronto, historic home to a large Italian community.
We are unlikely to see all these routes again before 2023/24, some may be operated with one/two weekly flights, certainly the network to the U.S., the one that over the years has produced along with the Tokyo connections the few profits for the company, will be cut to the bone. And this is where the three American sisters-Delta, United, and American-aim to intercept the big of traffic by offering, in addition to direct connections, flights to secondary airports such as Palermo, Bologna, Naples, and Venice in addition to Rome and Milan. Milan, which is also manned by Emirates and from the daily flight with JFK. We must not, then, overlook the presence of the The Companies that will begin flying in October. with its business class-only airline proposal. Also waiting to see what it will decide to do Neos, the Alpitour Group carrier that launched during this summer connections to the U.S. right from Malpensa.
Obviously, European companies will not sit idly by and it is fair to expect a shower of offers To book a flight from almost any Italian airport with a stopover in Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or London and then on to the final destination by taking advantage of a very extensive network such as that offered by Air France/KLM, British Airways, and Lufthansa Group companies.
Next summer should, by now the conditional is a must, be the one that will see the borders reopened and it is logical to expect a boom in intercontinental traffic. The States have historically been the top destination for Italians, and the absence of a player like ITA from the competition will give all players a chance to capture important slices of the market as early as the next few weeks, when bookings begin for the Christmas period and then for spring and summer.
Now you have to figure out what ITA will do, what routes will be for sale, and whether there will also be an announcement of the new company's alliance/partnership at the same time, only then will we know how the newco plans to protect itself from being plundered by competitors.
