Italy's ITA Airways Joins SkyTeam Alliance

So who did a successful status match?
Did anyone already receive a card already?

"better fit" rarely means what avgeeks think it does. It can hardly be considered rational for the Star alliance to have a half dozen hubs across multiple countries competing for the same traffic flows across Central Europe but that is what exists.
Alitalia and now ITA have established and proven routes via Skyteam hubs which are stable and are operated by Skyteam airlines. Marketing relationships take years to develop and both Skyteam (which heavily means Delta in this case) and ITA recognize they are better off working together.
In time, ITA might work its way back into the multi-carrier transatlantic joint venture

I got a successful match with BA Gold to the top tier Executive in a week. No card yet. Wonder when Skyteam perks will apply to members.

Oneworld would have been great. AA has cut all service to FCO until March, and has nothing to MXP in November. Most BA/IB connections to head back to the US are brutal: either overnight in connecting city, change of airport in London, or 6:00am departure from FCO.

ITA could have helped fix these issues with Oneworld. SkyTeam already has solid connectivity in/out of FCO and MXP; there's none of the nonsense above that Oneworld puts you through. Flying back via AMS on KLM/Delta is the best: can depart FCO as late as 1pm and Schiphol is infinitely better than LHR.

Is their status match still active?

I did the AA challenge to Plat Pro and could now parlay that into Star Gold (through Aeroplan) and SkyTeam status through ITA.

I suspect OW didn't want them. Also, AA hasn't cut FCO. Almost all of AA's FCO portfolio is seasonal, though each year the season gets longer, with JFK in particular, which, just before the pandemic was due to start in March, not April/May as it usually has. AA's only year round FCO route was PHL.

Forget about alliance.

How many times have Alitalia been assimilated into Alitalia which isn't Alitalia but will eventually be Alitalia which will soon be like the rest of Alitalia just to be taken over by another Alitalia again.

This is probably the Italian way to screw creditors, regulators, and customers. It like Chapter 11 but with a middle finger.

Let's cut out all the trash. Abandon the loyal customers.
Start clean slate, and acquire what isn't trash for cheap.
Operate the same old way.
Go bankrupt in 5-10 years. Screw creditors, regulators, and customers.
Rinse and repeat.

Maybe before thinking of joining a team they should have thought about all the authorizations they need! They had to divert 8 flights last week because they couldn't land at Milano Linate because the don't have the authorizations from ENAC to land with fog!

This is all about DL wanting to extend its former JV with the old AZ to the new AZ. It would look really bad if ITA went to an alliance like Star (I don't really see them joining OW). This is the first time in a long time that SkyTeam has flexed some muscle. However, it's a mystery as to what DL plans to do with SkyTeam. It hasn't really pushed for greater synergies to go after new business within the alliance. Certain carriers like SU, MU and SV are from weird countries with weird laws, and though they offer a lot of coverage in their own markets, they are very much idiosyncratic, and DL doesn't codeshare with them. Carriers like OK, RO, and ME are very small potatoes. SkyTeam is a wastebasket of carriers outside the Big 5 (DL/AF/KL/VS/KE), so DL is right in its approach to forming ties outside the alliance.

I hope this leads to some internationally acceptable standards, regardless of names. I was on Alitalia some 6 weeks ago - JFK > FCO > JFK in premium economy. It was absolutely dreadful from two points of view. The food was appalling, almost non-existent, no drinks at all beyond water and the cabin staff were miserable - surly I think might be a good word.
There are some mountains for the new management to climb - first they need to get up to the standard of US domestic airlines - not a high bar, but they have to put some effort into it.

And they cut PHL entirely this year, hence they have now cut FCO completely out of their network until March.

1) yes, almost immediately - AA PLT to "Premier", wife AA Gold to "Plus"
2) Card? lol. Their tiers' names don't even match between what is buried in their T/C (the only place anything is written about it) and the name they use in the confirmation. And no benefits are listed anywhere.

I would have been (almost) excited to see ITA break the mould and join OW, but like Ben am unsurprised at where things ended up.
Walking in Alitalia's footprints does not seem to be a winning formula, as we all know where they led ultimately.

ITA has a long way to go. They don’t even have a working English website yet. It’s all in Italian right now.

VS is not actually in SkyTeam, but given the level of cooperation with DL it has, that hardly matters.