In 2021, we saw ITA Airways replace Alitalia as Italy’s national airline. Alitalia had been struggling financially for years, and the Italian government wanted a clean slate… sort of. So the country created a new company, which took over most of Alitalia’s aircraft, staff, routes, etc.
Continue reading: ITA Airways Bringing Back Alitalia Branding, Sort Of
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I wonder if we'll eventually see them bring the name fully back (as Saudia, for example, eventually did)? There's ways to do so without being encumbered by Alitalia's past debts, to any extent they still exist. Would be interesting.
Let's hope the Lufthansa accountants don't pinch too many pennies when it comes to the soft product, specifically the food.
If they ever become profitable again they can add to that, "Inspired by Alitalia, whipped in to shape by Lufthansa Group"
The Alitalia brand and logo were iconic. The rest of the "old" Alitalia, not so much. But, the Italian government paid something like 40 million Euros to retain exclusive use of the trademark so they have to some extent, use it.
Maybe ita should establish a subsidiary with the alitalia name, for example for short flights within europe? or flights out of milan?
Or perhaps incorporate the iconic A of alitalia into the A of ITA?
I think/hope that this is only an embryonic and provisional phase and that the Alitalia brand and livery will actually return to flying in the future, at least on long haul and premium medium haul flights. If they really don't want to throw away the "ITA Airways" brand (horrible name in my opinion) I would only use it for a low cost branch (like Eurowings for Lufthansa or Transavia for AF-KLM).
That's probably a preparation for LHG taking over and bringing ITA down to their level. Then it will probably be as crap as Alitalia's image.
LH and ITA have both said that the Alitalia brand will be used in one way or another. They also legally are required to use it, or else it’s up for grabs due to lack of use. This is why the “Swissair” name is still used by a small flying club too, with permission of Swiss.
LH bosses have said that one of their ideas is to merge ITA with Air Dolomiti, which could then be renamed as Alitalia.
ITA bosses floated around the idea early on about reusing the Alitalia brand on long haul premium routes and keep ITA for the rest.
imho the ITA livery (and the whole new brand identity in general) is very weak and inferior to that of Alitalia from every point of view
I find it quite bizarre but it makes sense, and they’ve outlined quite valid reasons for it. Moreover, you can still see among the crew members some sort of Alitalia nostalgia, I think they’ll be the happiest out of this change.
I assume what’s happened here is the passenger profile is very different to what they expected and the ITA brand is therefore a problem rather than a fresh start.
The original idea of ITA was to leave behind any association with Alitalia which is heavily tarnished as a brand in Italy and much of Europe, especially for business travellers, and is basically associated with strikes, poor service etc. As a result, they tried to create a new ‘premium’ full service brand instead.
What has actually happened is that travel to Italy since COVID is now mostly tourists from the US and elsewhere who look up fares to Italy and see ITA, then say ‘what is that? A start up? Some low cost carrier?’ and in many cases probably book with an airline they’ve heard of instead (AF/LH/BA/DL/AA/UA, whatever). This seems to be an attempt to make ITA appear more ‘legitimate’ by associating with a former flag carrier.
All ITA flights are still coded as AZ which I think keeps Alitalia name alive or sort of.
again for the n-time. Alitalia never made a profit in 23 years of operation. It is a national shame for many Italian.
Waiting for two shoes to drop. 1) ITA leaves SkyTeam for Star Alliance. 2) ITA is fitted with Allegris seats.
As a European Boomer and frequent flyer for most of my adult life I grew up watching Alitalia. Honestly, I don’t get the hype about the brand. Would I fly on Alitalia if given a choice? Probably not. Would I fly ITA Airways? Much more likely! This is a modern company vs. and old complacent and unambitious company destroyed by politicians and unions. Even when it was clear what needed to be done these stakeholders didn’t realize that time had come. The mindset of the two companies is so much different and certainly do not value the former Alitalia mindset!
I also have a soft spot for the Alitalia branding even though I think the ITA livery is gorgeous!
I would just change it from inspired by Alitalia, to simply ITA by Alitalia!
What a terrible idea. Good riddance to a terrible airline, who truly embodied the spirit of its full name "Always Late In Takeoff, Always Late In Arrival".
While my favourite place in the world, Italy is a country uniquely unable to comprehend that not all traditions are positive by the sole virtue of being traditions. For another example, look at how they named MXP after Silvio Berlusconi a few months ago.
I am biased. I am an ex-Alitalia employee. As Manager in the San Francisco market, I led a phenomenal team, worked with an enormously talented station manager and his team and together, we built the fastest growing franchise in the entire North American division of the airline.
Our airline was loved by the local Italian-American community and the service onboard our flights to Milan was generally high quality. We made decisions locally that made it better (fresh food in Economy for example) and the route was very close to being profitable.
9/11 changed all that. We lost the route and we lost our jobs.
Alitalia was a quintessentially Italian airline. Those who understand Italy well understand this statement. It was loved and hated, yet Italians would defend it to the end.
Alitalia pioneered air travel for Italy and since history is a significant part of Italian life, it explains much about why ITA protected the brand and now wants to bring it back in a small way.
ITA Airways’ performance has given it a future, especially with Lufthansa participating in its management. If done correctly, adding Alitalia will be a positive for the airline and will honor a key part of Italian history and Italian pride.
Speaking of ITA, when is Lucky going to give us a review of the new business class on the A321neo? Or has he already done so and I missed it?
Very unpopular opinion - It’s not always about profitability, efficiency and making the rich richer. Alitalia was the national and official airline, it brought Italians a lot of pride.
We do the same thing here, we bail out our airlines and allow them to monopolize the markets via unchallenged mergers…so yes they are profitable because we bend the rules for them and give them that safety net every time they needed it.
I wish I could exclude state-owned airlines when searching for flights. No reason to support bad economic models.
Would that include airlines we bail out? Or too big to fail because they eliminated worthy competition and we allowed that?
Things that 0.0000001% of customers would give a sh!t about when booking. Hence why you can't.
Oh please. The amount people, outside of aviation geeks and finance bros, who had a running and accurate knowledge of Alitalia's status or finances, is probably too low to even compute. Plenty probably read the headlines of it losing money, but not any fundamental understanding of the details, such as to have "national shame."
Heck, you just proved that yourself. Alitalia was a government entity for 62 years and a private one for 13 years, so no idea where you're getting "23 years of operation" from. And they did have a profitable year.
Al-ITA-lia
They could have just scraped a few letters off each plane and kept the logo, if the branding was so important to them. 😉
Poor Julia. I bet John Wayne and John Foster Dulles really gets her knickers in a wad.
@ImmortalSynn. Do I understand correctly you are saying that I merely read headlines, sensationalist ones at that and that I have no financial comprehension about them, as stated above by another user who mentioned the last year of profit back in 1998 (!)? That I find funny, because I have a strong connection to MXP and the people working there. I can cite countless examples of how Alitalia squandered it's resources to support political ties in Rome, from where it got the many "bridge loans" that of course were supposed to be fully paid back but where not. The heck, at the recent peak of things, Alitalia was losing 2 Mio EUR per single day of operation. But yes, of course I am absolutely mistaken, have no clue of finance and just read the headlines...
I know of a fabric supplier that is owed more than 1 Mio EUR for uniforms. Alitalia decided to unilaterally cancel the debt by not paying long before the last bankruptcy. The supplier, as small local business mind you that nearly went bankrupt himself on that order, was told Alitalia cannot be sued in Italy, so his loss.
Historically, trying to think of any good things that have come from German and Italian alliances.
Alitalia was a basket case for years so you'd think the new ITA would want to distance itself from it as much as possible.
A ridiculous move in my opinion.
I’m waiting for some US-based airlines to give tribute to the defunct and legendary Northwest Airlines in their marketing…
“N.W.A.—Straight Outta Minnesota!”
True! Why would anyone want to resurrect a tarnished brand in this way? Yes, Alitalia is well known but for so many wrong reasons!