Alitalia

Creation of Alitalia-CAI

In 2008, a group of investors made the "Compagnia Aerea Italiana" (CAI) consortium aimed to buy the bankrupt Alitalia – Linee Aeree Italiane ("old" Alitalia) and to merge these with Air One, another bankrupt Italian carrier.

On 30 October 2008, CAI offered €1 billion to acquire parts of the bankrupt airline, amidst pilots' and flight crew members' opposition to labour agreements. On 19 November 2008, CAI's offer was accepted by the bankruptcy administrator of Alitalia with the permission of the Italian government, at the time major shareholder of the bankrupt airline. Alitalia's profitable assets were transferred to CAI on 12 December 2008 after CAI paid €1052 million, consisting of €427 million in cash and the assumption of responsibility for €625 million in Alitalia debt.

A USA diplomatic cable disclosed in 2011 summarised the operation as follows: "Under the guise of a rather quaint (and distinctly un-EU) desire to maintain the Italian-ness of the company, a group of wealthy Berlusconi cronies was enticed into taking over the healthy portions of Alitalia, leaving its debts to the Italian taxpayers. The rules of bankruptcy were changed in the middle of the game to meet the government's needs. Berlusconi pulled this one off, but his involvement probably cost the Italian taxpayers a lot of money."

On 13 January 2009, the "new" Alitalia launched operations. 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 "new" Alitalia has not claimed the old Alitalia's history as its own, as can be seen in official documents regarding the new "Alitalia Group". Instead, they stressed they are a totally different company, as it can be seen in different occasions. For example, they chose not to recognize benefits such as discounted tickets to former Alitalia-LAI workers. They also refused to honour passengers' claims against the old Alitalia on this basis.

The new Alitalia doesn't own many of its operating airplanes. (Alitalia-LAI had owned all of its airplanes.) Almost every plane that CAI had acquired from the old Alitalia was sold or decommissioned. Instead, Alitalia-CAI airplanes are leased mostly from Aircraft Purchase Fleet (it), an Irish company owned by Carlo Toto, the ex owner of the bankrupt Air One which was merged in 2008 to Alitalia-CAI when the new company was founded.

History under new ownership

In January 2010, Alitalia celebrated its first anniversary since the relaunch. It carried 22 million passengers in its first year of operations. In 2011, 25 million passengers were carried. On 1 February 2010, it was announced that Alitalia crew would go on a four-hour strike over wages. This was the first strike action for Alitalia since the relaunch. On 11 February 2010, Alitalia announced that, starting from March 2010, it would use Air One as a low-fare airline ("Smart Carrier"), with operations based at Milan Malpensa Airport, focused on short-haul leisure routes. It was predicted that the subsidiary would handle 2.4 million passengers by 2012. In 2011, 1.4 million passengers were carried by the subsidiary. Although operations were initially to be concentrated at Milan Malpensa, Air One later operated from Milan-Malpensa, Venice-Marco Polo, Pisa and Catania as of January 2013.

On 12 February 2011, information was released about a possible merger between Alitalia and Meridiana Fly, another Italian carrier. The merger did not take place. On 23 February 2011, Alitalia and ENAC announced the introduction of a safety card written in braille and characters in 3-D relief, which is the first of its kind. On 25 January 2012, Alitalia signed memoranda of understanding with two other Italian airlines, Blue Panorama and Wind Jet, and said to have started processes "aimed at achieving integration" with them. By the end of July 2012, the Italian antitrust authority allowed Alitalia to acquire Wind Jet, but in return Alitalia would have to cede slots on domestic routes. Faced with this, Alitalia cancelled the plans a few days later in August 2012.

On 3 May 2013, in a sting codenamed "Operation Clean Holds", police made 49 arrests at Rome's Fiumicino airport, with another 37 in Italian airports including Bari, Bologna, Milan Linate, Naples, Palermo and Verona. All were Alitalia employees caught on camera and most were charged with aggravated theft and damage.

In June 2014, the Abu Dhabi-based UAE national airline Etihad Airways announced it was taking a 49% stake in Alitalia. On 1 January 2015, Alitalia-CAI formally passed its operations to Alitalia-SAI, a new entity owned 49% by Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways and 51% owned by the former Italian stakeholders of Alitalia-CAI.

In May 2015, Alitalia announced it would terminate its partnership with Air France-KLM in 2017, stating that there were no longer enough advantages from the joint venture to keep it up.

In February 2016, Alitalia announced that in late March 2016 it would cancel most of its routes from Pisa, including Moscow, Prague, Berlin, Catania and Tirana. Alitalia decided to continue flying to Olbia and Rome.

Administration

Alitalia's head office is located in Building Alfa at Via Alberto Nassetti in Fiumicino, Province of Rome. The corporate headquarters was designed by AMDL, a Milan-based architecture firm. The head office was previously in a building at Piazza Almerico da Schio, also in Fiumicino.

The CEO of the airline since March 2016 is Cramer Ball, Chairman is Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the vice chairman is James Hogan, president and CEO of Etihad Airways.

Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) holds a 51% stake in Alitalia, while Etihad Airways holds the remaining 49%.

Advertising

A variety of different slogans are currently being used by Alitalia:

In 2014, the company adopted a new slogan

Finance and load factors

Major shareholding

Alitalia's shareholders are CAI (Compagnia Aerea Italiana) 51% and Etihad Airways 49%.

CAI - Compagnia Aerea Italiana (Italian Air Partnership) is an Italian airline holding company whose main shareholders are: Intesa Sanpaolo (20.59%), Poste Italiane (19.48%) and UniCredit (12.99%).

Destinations

Alitalia serves 97 destinations (as of April 2016). Alitalia's hub is at Rome Fiumicino Airport, and five other Italian airports and Tirana International Airport in Albania are focus cities.

Codeshare agreements

Alitalia codeshares with the following airlines:

SkyTeam

Alitalia has been in the SkyTeam alliance since 2009; Alitalia-LAI originally joined in 2001. Alitalia has since arranged code-share agreements with SkyTeam members, allowing passengers to fly to numerous destinations (with some or all segments operated by airlines other than Alitalia) using a single Alitalia ticket. In July 2010, Alitalia also joined Air France, KLM and Delta's transatlantic Joint Venture, meaning that the profits from flights across the Atlantic are shared between the four airlines.

Current fleet

As of September 2016, the Alitalia mainline fleet (excluding subsidiary Alitalia CityLiner) consists of the following aircraft:

Fleet development

Between 2009 and 2011, Alitalia renewed its fleet with 34 new aircraft, while 26 older planes were retired. The renewal process ended in early 2013. These new planes are not owned by Alitalia itself, but are leased mostly from Aircraft Purchase Fleet, an Irish leasing company created by former Air One owner Carlo Toto primarily to purchase the new Alitalia fleet. Following the Air One merger, the entire fleet that was not already leased from other lessors, plus the former Air One fleet that was owned by Air One outright, came under the ownership of APF, a subsidiary of Toto's Italian conglomerate Toto Holding. The entire fleet, except the two new A330s, is now on the Irish registry instead of the Italian registry. With the new strategic plan focused on long haul, in January 2015 it was announced that seven wide-bodies would join the fleet beginning in May 2015 with an A330-200 in a new livery.

The company is planning to introduce new aircraft. The new Airbus A320neo family has been proposed for short to medium haul. While the Airbus 350 the Boeing 777-300ER and the Boeing 777X are being considered to expand the long-haul fleet. On 18 May 2016 Etihad Aviation Group president and CEO James Hogan stated that there is potential for equity partner Alitalia to grow to 40 long-haul aircraft from its current fleet of 24.

Fleet gallery

Historical fleet

Special liveries

Cabin

Alitalia has four classes of service:

All Airbus A320 family aircraft were refitted with new "slim" leather Recaro seats in 2010. Seatback TV screens for entertainment were installed on some aircraft. Between December 2015 and April 2016, all Airbus A320 family aircraft will again receive new state of the art black leather seats with beige headrest covers for Business Class and red ones for Economy Class as part of the airline's renewed corporate branding.

Frequent-flyer program

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

It also grants access to Alitalia's Privilege clubs, Ulisse, Freccia Alata, and Freccia Alata Plus, depending on the number of miles collected in a year, with various advantages depending on the club. These clubs give access to SkyTeam Elite (Ulisse) and SkyTeam Elite+ (Freccia Alata, Freccia Alata plus).

As of 3 February 2015 Etihad Airways has acquired a 75 per cent stake in Alitalia Loyalty S.p.A, the owner and operator of MilleMiglia, Alitalia’s frequent flyer programme, with Alitalia retaining the remaining 25 per cent stake. Alitalia Loyalty is now part of Global Loyalty Company (GLC), a loyalty and lifestyle company that allows Etihad Airways and its partners to target the global loyalty market more effectively, whilst driving technology and back office synergies. GLC also consists of Etihad Airways’ Etihad Guest, airberlin’s topbonus and Jet Airways’ JetPrivilege programmes. Together, Etihad Guest, topbonus, JetPrivilege and MilleMiglia have a combined total of 14 million members worldwide.

Accidents and incidents

Listed here are incidents since Alitalia-CAI's launch of operations on 13 January 2009: