Caught a plane in Alitalia colors in Johannesburg: what was it doing there and who is it going to fly for
The colors of the old Alitalia are becoming increasingly rare to see at airports. As we reported on The Flight [...]
Alitalia
JNB
The colors of the old Alitalia are becoming increasingly rare to see at airports. As we reported in The Flight Club a few weeks ago, At the end of November there were just three aircraft in force at ITA Airways still In the livery of Italy's historic flag carrier.
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These are two Airbus A320ceo and one Airbus A319, the latter even more 'special' because it wears the fourth and last Alitalia livery, the one 'wanted' by Etihad Airways following the marriage with Alitalia that later ended in a divorce that was the appetizer for the liquidation of the homegrown carrier.
In October 2021, ITA Airways took over and in just over three years, Alitalia livery aircraft have almost disappeared, the result for a small part of their repainting in the Blue Savoy of ITA and for a large part of ITA's acquisition of completely new aircraft.
![ITA crosses the 100-plane milestone. All names of blue champions on fuselages (including 13 new entries) [updated 2025].](https://www.theflightclub.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ita-a320-facchetti-900x675.jpeg)
That's why when, during a recent trip South Africa, I was confronted completely by surprise by an airplane with a tricolor tail, I was almost moved. I found myself In a suburban area of Johannesburg airport., where the facilities dedicated to the maintenance and training of Airlink, today South Africa's largest company.
With my companion, we were visiting the open-air spaces dedicated to firefighting training for the crews when, suddenly, there it was-the plane in green and white (the red on the tail had already been erased): an Embraer ERJ-175, a twin-engine, 88-seat regional aircraft that Alitalia Cityliner used on domestic and intra-European 'thin' routes, i.e., with reduced traffic volumes, For about ten years between 2011 and 2021.
The ex-Alitalia ERJ stood next to a smaller ERJ-135 now decommissioned by Airlink and used, precisely, for training cabin crews in evacuation operations in case of smoke or fire. For a moment I feared that the former Alitalia was also there to meet the same end, but then I noticed that it was mounting new engines and wing and aileron control surfaces. So I asked, and the Airlink representative explained. the ERJ 175 would soon return to service with Airlink, which has only Embraer aircraft in its fleet.
A matter of days, then, and what was left of the Alitalia livery would be gone, replaced by that of the South African company. The Alitalia brand, however, seems far from disappearing. As many of the readers of The Flight Club know, ITA Airways had purchased it for 90 million euros shortly before taking over the former national airline.
And last September, on the sidelines of the opening of the company's new offices in Milan, AZ's top management showed a video at the end of which appeared the words "ITA Airways, inspired by Alitalia". President Antonio Turicchi explained that "the Alitalia brand will appear on certain touch points, that is, it will be linked to ITA's brand in specific aspects of the company's business and its relationship with customers." In short, paraphrasing what they used to say in European royal courts when a ruler died, we could say that 'Alitalia is dead, long live Alitalia.'
