Air Italy Cuts Los Angeles, San Francisco, And Toronto Flights (Now Only Seasonal)

Do you think they will cancel existing routes to NYC from Milan? I’m flying with them in July and I’m worried

Just to be clear, is it your understanding that these flight will continue for this summer? I've got four people booked in business (using Avios) MXP-LAX for late June. How worried should I be?

October 2019 not 2018, right? 🙂

Air Italy needs a hub first, then you can plot adding flight to far off places. First they should build up their hub in MXP with flights all over Europe. Then they can go to other airlines and create partnerships and then they can add flights to the USA & Asia. Well it is fun to watch this airline cut flights though.

@ Russ -- Whoops, thanks. Fixed.

@ Mark -- Correct, they're expected to operate this summer. Personally I wouldn't be too worried about them being canceled, since demand is high for transatlantic flights in summer.

@ Marc -- I wouldn't be worried. That was their first route, and it's also a very big market in peak summer season.

I've always thought Air Italy was an attempt to smite Delta via SkyTeam competition.
weird flex but ok.

Miss Meridiana. Charming little carrier. Flew Meridiana LGW-FLR, loved those guys. £107 round trip to Florence for the weekend, nice flight.

At FLR they charged me roughly 3x the price quoted on my eticket receipt for a checked bag and said that I should have known the price was only valid for bags booked in advance online. Also I got to FLR airport too early and had to basically sit on a bench and do nothing but endure complaints from my spouse who (reasonably) pointed out that it was my fault that we had gotten to the airport way too early and had nothing to do but sit on a bench, and that it my fault that we had been tricked into overpaying for a checked bag, although in fairness I pointed out that it would be about a one-minute credit card dispute to ensure that we later paid the quoted price (and it was) (and we did).

Also, separately, at LGW, they had a little sign up at their check-in counter that said "I know you bought your ticket on British Airways's web site and I know you are using a check-in counter adjacent to the BA check-in counters, but we are not British Airways and we do charge fees for checked baggage. Sorry but this is called a 'codeshare'." Apparently a lot of people were confused by the concept.

Also, the PNR was only 5 characters long.

The flights were fine, on time, comfy, all went well.

If Air Italy is planning on being an Italy-centric leisure carrier, this is the way to do it.

They made such a fanfare over the LAX route with the creme de la creme of their management, media and Italian consul general of LA present on inaugural day

They simply cannot compete with legacy carriers and I would not book with such an airline as they don’t have the back up when things go wrong

Need to join One World if they want that connecting traffic. Don't see them lasting too long as a standalone airline.

At least they tried and pulled put pretty quickly. Isn't that what legacy airlines do as well? American cancelled most Asia routes from ORD and United changing many Irish and Eastern European routes to seasonal?

@That sounds nice in theory, but the problem is that Air Italy’s route network is limited, so they’ll have a hard time getting the connecting traffic required to make these flights work

You're missing a point. No need in connecting traffic to make these flights work. The ones are very popular holiday destinations for Italians. Trash holiday airline Blue Panorama has been doing flights to these destinations for ages.

So Air Italy simply turns itself into charter/leisure carrier for North Italy in order not to make losses.

You don’t need connections to fill places like Mombasa from Milan. It’s a huge destination for Italians. Running O&D heavy leisure routes counter-seasonal, with the two largest markets, NYC and Miami, year-round, actually seems like a good plan.

Not sure if you are talking about orders but, as far as I know, they only have 2 boeing 737 max.
Italian media doesn't talk much of this routes' mess.. Weird!

Giving up on the US and adding holiday routes is all well and good, although an embarrassing set back as you say @Lucky, but they aren't going to fill a business cabin to Tenerife or Mombasa which are cheap leisure routes so yields are surely going to be low. Meanwhile, having Qatar standard business class service on cheap holiday routes seems like a mismatch.

This gave me an idea - I vote Lucky does a review of Blue Panorama business class...always saying you like quirky airlines 😉

@Trent I second that!

This airline is so Italian, they say things, then realize they messed up and have to backpedal. Looks like they have no strategy.

They really need to focus on high traffic short-medium hall routes to make long haul routes profitable. How about service to London or Amsterdam to the west? And they should really look towards Budapest and Tel Aviv to the east, lots of demand for Milan there.

This company needs to refocus on Europe first and then can spread its wings. Way too much focus on Africa as of now.

The Greater Toronto Hamilton Area in Ontario has a HUGE Italian diaspora population.
They are blaming the weather for cutting back service. Ha. They knew what the weather was when they started the flights. People travel for lots of reasons, most not related to the weather. They just can't compete.

I’ve read this post and the reply supposedly from AirItaly; where is it coming from?

I’m in contact the the Top Management of the airline and nobody confirmed this. Not all the 3 routes mentioned will be seasonal; the winter season operations are still not fully disclosed.

Why are you so angry with air Italy? This article is so harsh! What has Air Italy done to you to be so spiteful?
Also, I am appalled at some of the degrading and offensive comments about Italians like “this airline is so Italian”. If you hate Italians so much then don’t read articles about our airlines and don’t spit out gross generalizations about us. Stick with your great American Airlines.

Avoid Air Italy! They cancelled both flights to and from Maldives within 4 days.
When I was notified about the departure flight cancellation, I asked if the return flight will stay the same because I needed to know how I stand. Maldives is a very expensive destination and changes come for a high price. They said yeessss, no changeees. And 4 days later, bang! Cancelled the other flight too. Seriously?!
"(...)hence our planned schedule for counter-seasonal flights to the Maldives, Mombasa, Tenerife, Zanzibar and Fort De France matches our home market demands." - this is just bull. They cancelled Maldives in a blink of an eye and, like a really bad joke, they announced that 15 days prior the departure, to make sure we are not entitled to compensation. Lame management. Apparently, bad habits from Meridiana are still there, within the company. I wonder what Qatar Airways, their investors, would think about this. Very unprofessional.