ITA Airways' entire fleet now has premium economy: the Italian airline offers three classes on all long- and medium-haul flights

ITA Airways has completed the upgrade of its Airbus A350-900 fleet, with the installation of the Premium Economy cabin. The retrofit of the fleet had begun last April and was completed late last week with the return to service of the last example passed from Atitech's care at Naples Capodichino.

A350s, the first new aircraft acquired by ITA after operations begin in October 2021, had arrived in the fleet in a two-cabin configuration, (Business and Economy) because the Italian airline had taken over their acquisition from China's Hainan Airlines, which had ordered them but then dropped the order.

The Asian carrier had configured the planes in two classes and Installing a third cabin then would have meant delaying the entry into service of the A350s by weeks, for a company like ITA that instead needed to quickly insert new models into a fleet initially inherited in its entirety from Alitalia.

When then, in May 2023, the first A330-900neo entered service with a three-class cabin, followed a few months later by the A321neo also with three classes, the inadequacy of the A350s has become even more palpable for The lack of uniformity of the product offered by ITA on long and medium haul. Reason being, the decision was made to retrofit the A350s.

The six long-range bimotors now offer 33 seats in business, 24 in premium economy and 262 in economy for a total of 319 seats (compared to 334 before, including 33 in Business and 301 in Economy).

ITA Airways can thus boast of being the only European airline to offer its passengers three classes of service on all its long- and medium-haul routes, operated with A350-900, A330-900, A330-200 and A321neo.

The difference is right on the small flagship, the one used to fly to the Middle East and Africa. When other European carriers use single-aisle planes in fact to date none, have planes with real business class and premium economy seats.

• A350