ITA Airways, the first A350/900 will arrive in early summer
The CEO of Italy's new flag carrier, Fabio Lazzerini, in an interview with Rome's Messaggero newspaper announced the [...]
ITA Airways
SkyTeam
The CEO of the new Italian flag carrier, Fabio Lazzerini, in an interview with Rome's Messaggero newspaper announced the date of arrival of the first A350/900 in the fleet. The arrival of the largest and most modern machine in ITA's future fleet is scheduled for June, i.e., for When flights to South America will debut..
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The Airbus A350/900 is the most modern aircraft produced by the Franco-German company and will be the only one capable of covering the most distant routes in the operational of ITA Airways together with the new A330/900neo. Until then, the long-haul fleet will be the one inherited from the old Alitalia.
In the lengthy chat with the historic Roman newspaper, Lazzerini also talked about the numbers ITA Airways is putting up in these first 40 days of operations. Club Volare has surpassed 150,000 members, the reasons of success we explained them in this post of ours.
At the moment, however, no other news has come in about the new loyalty program. The absurd situation that prevents travelers from entering their data and accumulating points and miles with ITA Airways also continues, although he is a member of SkyTeam
Lazzerini also illustrated other numbers such as the growth rate of bookings, flight punctuality, numerous codeshare partnerships, and especially the approximately 600,000 passengers carried to date.
Returning to the fleet, the ad confirmed that 26 aircraft will arrive over the next year as planned and that June will be the month of the debut of what will be the new flagship of a 100% Airbus fleet..
Future alliance
The most interesting news, however, was not about the arrival of the new A350, but about the alliance. As is well known in recent weeks ITA Airways has joined SkyTeam, but Lazzerini clarified that the agreement is only for one year and that there are no penalties in case the carrier decides to leave the historic alliance to which Alitalia has always belonged. On the contrary, the CEO explained that six months' notice will be sufficient and, in case, ITA may marry with Star Alliance or One World, the others two covenants of the heavens present in the market today.
"A definitely important agreement because of how it came about: no company had ever been granted anything like this," Lazzerini told the Messenger
Who uses A350s
There are two variants in the A350 family: the 900, the smaller one that can carry about 315 passengers, and the 1000, which is longer and can carry nearly 370 people.
There are so many companies that have this model in their fleet. Here at TFC, we have already tested it in a version British Airways, where the new Club World Suites also debuted, e in Singapore livery. Just the Asian carrier has in its fleet the ULR (Ultra Long Range) version that can fly over 18 thousand kilometers and is used to carry out the longest scheduled flight in the world, namely the Singapore/New York.
To date, more than 440 have been delivered to 33 different airlines including Air France, Aeroflot, Virgin Atlantic, Delta and of course Lufthansa.
As for ITA, it is known that the new long-haul planes will be outfitted with 4 travel classes, no first class however. In fact, the configuration includes business class, premium economy, and then two tourist class cabins with a number of seats that will have more legroom.
Now all that remains to be done is to wait for the first renders of how the interior of the cabins will be configured, I personally hope that ITA managers will take a cue from the good things seen in some companies today adding a few Italianate touches.
