The EU Commission just greenlighted the acquisition by Lufthansa group of a 41% stake into ITA Airways (former Alitalia, callsign AZ), the Italian National Airlines
This will (hopefully) finally close a tragic era for the Italian flag carrier which since the early 2000s went through a series of bankruptcies, acquisitions, nationalisations and drama which forever stained the good name it acquired in the earlier years of avation.
AZ will therefore enter Star Alliance and leave Skyteam, and will have more codeshare options with BR throughout Italy and Europe in general (since even if it is technically a Skyteam member, cannot earn or use any miles with CI at all and has super limited codeshares, a very weird arrangement).
Couldn’t find any English sources yet, only in Italian, but there are even rumours that LH might choose to use the Alitalia name and brand again (which have been fully purchased by ITA some time ago, just kept in the safe), I hope maybe they keep the nice blue livery of the fuselage.
I flew with them and it was average in experience. Nothing to note that was good or particularly bad compared to other European airlines. Obviously not up to Asian and ME standards. But the price was acceptable for the experience in Italy.
Maybe it was due to emotional attachment, but I always enjoyed flying on them, being able to speak my language with the crew, eat my food (which was the highlight). Also yeah, Alitalia is just better, it’s Italian for christ sake, not this frigging Ital-English.
so last long haul flight I had on the old Alitalia it was a very nice NRTMXP (yes, we used to had that) in PY. Man it was a bliss. Good food, decent seat (not the best, but it was comfy), super professional crew (that to be honest never changed) who actually offered us in PY even espresso in china cups with limoncello from business class (since we were only like 6 in the whole PY cabin) and even gave an amenity kit which is better than some J class ones today! This was when AZ was still independent, even before EY bought a stake.
Actual last flight I had on the new Alitalia (so ITA) was a brief LCYLIN on a wet leased German Airways bird crewed by Germans. It was a professional and efficient flight: left on time, landed on time, bag got there on time, but there was nothing of Italian experience, only the flight number was AZ…
Now that AZ is moving into LH group and, therefore, joining Star Alliance, I do hope they will keep the cooperation with Amex in Italy as it is now since, with the platinum cobranded card you get instant Premium status with ITA (which is Skyteam Elite Plus!!!), so I hope they will keep that to have instant Star Alliance Gold!!! That would be a steal, even at ~720EUR p.a. (~25K TWD) in fees the status alone and the ability to earn qualifying points through normal purchases is actually amazing (1.5 points for each euro, ~52.74 TWD per qualifying point). This might make a difference next year, since this year I won’t qualify for Gold with BR (will get close though…), and that might be a much easier way to constantly keep Star Alliance gold via AZ status through Amex Ita cobranded cards, since BR is quite hefty to keep…
also, to be fair, my only flight on AC was not too bad (YYZFRA), nothing remarkable either. It got me from point A to point B on time, that’s it. But I keep hearing less than enthusiastic remarks on this once decent airline
yes, all airplanes of old Alitalia r property of ITA and some still fly in the old livery (as I said, ITA purchased also the old brand and name Alitalia, they just don’t use it now)
I found the business class food a bit underwhelming tbh. For Italy I thought it would be the highlight.
Their long haul flights actually had decent hard product but the short haul flights were as disappointing as any other major European airline. I actually think Austrian air had the best short haul hard product in Europe with more comfy business class seating layout on a embraer
My partners uncle worked for them in the late 90s and www saying how they used to give them crazy benefits back then. They had long stops staying at nice hotels and huge allowances. But that might be why they ran into financial difficulties
never flew with them on J (Unfortunately, but looking to try them maybe on my way back for Christmas, they r restarting the BKK route so it’s a decent way, a day in BKK is never a bad deal haha). But on PY and Y longhaul the food was always decent.
short haul is always shite for intra-europe flights, but now ITA actually has the new A321s with lie flat seats even for intra-europe flights (now mostly used on LHR bound flights) which is a revolution for European aviation, long haul besides the airplanes being old it was ok.
Man, it was just unbelievable. our neighbour at our hut in the mountains in Trentino was an Alitalia captain (from Rome). He was like they were always staying at the best hotels in town (like Mandarin Oriental or Peninsula in HK when they used to fly there), had stupidly high salaries and silly pensions. Like 100% of their last payslip, which was always bumped up a lot before retirement. He kept comparing Alitalia to a fat cow, so fat that the milk coming out of it was double cream!
Volare club Is not great indeed, basically the only good deal is that u get now SkyTeam benefits (and in the future sta alliance).
But if t6he keep the accrual logic they have now, getting to premium statuses is quite easy as there are big multipliers for the basic mileage, which AFAIK (and as they used to work before) also work for qualifying points.
I just hope they won’t merge immediately with miles and more.
Correct, there is already a new board with 3 director appointed by the Italian government and 2 appointed by LH, including the CEO (former air Dolomiti ceo).
Now it starts the integration process, it will take some time anyways, but AZ will join star alliance and most likely Volare (AZ FFP will merge with miles and more)
