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.
Honestly, I’d say what has happened in the past few years has probably been the best case scenario for the company. The financial performance hasn’t been that terrible, and Lufthansa Group has even invested in ITA Airways, so we’ll finally see Italy’s national carrier privatized a bit. In fairness, the incredibly strong demand for transatlantic travel, and in particular Italy’s popularity as a tourist destination, has helped quite a bit.
Along those lines, ITA Airways has just made an interesting announcement when it comes to branding…
In this post:
“ITA Airways, inspired by Alitalia”
By the end of 2024, ITA Airways’ visual identity “will be enriched with an historic element that pays tribute to both the country and aviation heritage.” Specifically, a lot of ITA Airways branding will show the carrier’s name, with a message behind it saying “inspired by Alitalia,” also with the Alitalia logo.
This project is being described as “concrete and ambitious,” and is intended to pay tribute to Alitalia’s “pioneering excellence in air transport and its role as an extraordinary ambassador of ‘Made in Italy’ around the world.”
As ITA Airways Chairman Antonion Turicchi describes this:
“We proudly presented the project to enhance the Alitalia brand, which will complement our identity logo ‘ITA Airways’ to reinforce its values of excellence in air transport, which are recognized worldwide.”
I mean, I guess this is a cute touch?
I have a soft spot for the Alitalia brand, so I’m kind of happy to see it will be making somewhat of a comeback. However, as far as I’m concerned, the airline should’ve just kept the Alitalia branding to begin with, since it is kind of an iconic brand.
I’m not sure Alitalia had the greatest reputation, but people knew the brand, while the average person outside of Italy (or perhaps Europe) doesn’t know what ITA Airways is.
I’m not sure this “inspired by Alitalia” branding will do a whole lot for the airline one way or another. I suppose this is just intended to give employees some sort of pride in the history of the company. Or maybe the idea is that for those not familiar with ITA Airways, seeing the Alitalia branding will remind them that this is an Italian airline.
Bottom line
Starting later this year, we’ll see ITA Airways bring back some Alitalia branding, as the airline will add the “inspired by Alitalia” phrase to some of its marketing. The idea is to pay tribute to the history of the company. As an Alitalia fan, I’m happy to see this return, even if I don’t think this will accomplish a whole lot, one way or another.
What do you make of ITA Airways resurrecting the Alitalia brand?
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!”
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.
True! Why would anyone want to resurrect a tarnished brand in this way? Yes, Alitalia is well known but for so many wrong reasons!
Historically, trying to think of any good things that have come from German and Italian alliances.
True, next time just with the Japanese and without the useless Italians.
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. ;)
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.
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?
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...
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.
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.
Almost as bad as DCA having Ronald Reagan attached to it.
Poor Julia. I bet John Wayne and John Foster Dulles really gets her knickers in a wad.
Aw, is someone triggered by my comment?
Regarding the livery, green would've been a better choice than blue.
Savoy Blue is Italy's national color
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".
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!
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...
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!
Waiting for two shoes to drop. 1) ITA leaves SkyTeam for Star Alliance. 2) ITA is fitted with Allegris seats.
again for the n-time. Alitalia never made a profit in 23 years of operation. It is a national shame for many Italian.
They did in 1998!
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.
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,...
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.
@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...
@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...
All ITA flights are still coded as AZ which I think keeps Alitalia name alive or sort of.
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...
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.
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.
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...
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.
The way Alitalia had Alitalia CityLiner for it's regional flights?
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.
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).
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?
Why not just bring back Alitalia CityLiner for that?
I like the new ITA branding though. Especially the livery.
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
Now LH group please bring back Swissair and Sabena :)
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.
If they ever become profitable again they can add to that, "Inspired by Alitalia, whipped in to shape by Lufthansa Group"
Lol, this is a good one!
Hopefully it's not "Inspired by Alitalia, ruined by the Lufthansa Group"
Lufthansa Group can't seem to keep even Lufthansa in shape
Let's hope the Lufthansa accountants don't pinch too many pennies when it comes to the soft product, specifically the food.
I like it. Miss the old branding.
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.
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.