Italy’s national carrier, ITA Airways, will be throwing in the towel on Italy’s most competitive transatlantic route, and that seems sensible.
In this post:
ITA Airways cancels transatlantic flights from Milan
As of January 8, 2024, ITA Airways will be discontinuing its route between Milan (MXP) and New York (JFK). The airline currently operates this 3,995-mile route daily with an Airbus A330-300, using the following schedule:
AZ604 Milan to New York departing 1:20PM arriving 4:55PM
AZ605 New York to Milan departing 8:45PM arriving 10:45AM (+1 day)
ITA Airways’ primary long haul hub is in Rome (FCO), though the airline has historically operated a single transatlantic flight out of Milan, to New York. With ITA Airways now discontinuing this route, the airline is fully pulling out of Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP). However, the airline continues to operate domestic and short haul international flights out of Milan Linate Airport (LIN).
This is major for ITA Airways and its predecessor, Alitalia. Going back as far as 1948, Alitalia has continuously operated service out of Milan Malpensa Airport, though that will finally be ending. Meanwhile this particular route was also operated by Alitalia for many years.
It makes sense for ITA Airways to cancel this route
ITA Airways has stated that the Milan to New York route has been unprofitable for a long time, so it’s good to see the airline actually following the numbers and making a sound business decision, rather than operating routes based on prestige.
Why has ITA Airways been unable to make the Milan to New York route work? Well, it comes down to competition, as this route (between JFK and EWR) is also served by American, Delta, United, Emirates, and La Compagnie (and Neos, but with limited frequencies):
- American is part of the oneworld transatlantic joint venture, so captures much of the oneworld traffic between the two city pairs, plus has some amount of connectivity in New York
- Delta has a ton of connectivity in New York, and also has a transatlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic
- United operates to Milan out of Newark with a huge domestic route network, and also belongs to the Star Alliance transatlantic joint venture
- In terms of getting the best overall product, many people like to fly Emirates’ fifth freedom flight between the two airports, given how well regarded the airline is
- La Compagnie is an all-business class airline that offers incredible value for premium travelers, so presumably that captures quite a bit of the premium leisure demand
While ITA is Italy’s national carrier, there hasn’t been much logic to operating this route:
- ITA Airways had no advantage with connectivity in Milan, since the airline has no other routes out of Milan Malpensa
- ITA has been excluded from Delta’s transatlantic joint venture, so the airline hasn’t been able to command the same yields as Delta, and Delta also wasn’t booking a lot of passengers on its partner
- ITA’s A330-300 business class product isn’t nearly as good as the carrier’s A330-900neo or A350-900 business class product, so ITA’s passenger experience wasn’t exactly amazing
- It makes a lot more sense for ITA to continue to focus on its Rome hub, where there’s a bit less competition to New York, and the airline has a lot more connectivity
I could see this route returning eventually, but only if Lufthansa Group is successful in buying ITA, and if ITA is able to join the Star Alliance transatlantic joint venture. If that were the case, I imagine this route could be profitable.
Bottom line
ITA Airways will be canceling its Milan to New York route as of early 2024. This means that ITA is completely pulling out of Milan Malpensa Airport, and it will also be the first time in decades that ITA/Alitalia don’t operate this route. This seems like a logical route cut, and there’s still plenty of competition in the market.
What do you make of ITA Airways cutting Milan Malpensa flights?
I'm so ancient, Alitalia had just gotten it's 747's in mid-'76, the flight from Rome to JFK stopped in Milan for what seemed like two hours. Rear of the plane mostly empty, only time I've seen male FA's under blankets with female passengers. Being youngish, I kept my eyes wide shut!
I miss the days in the 80s and early 90s of seeing 747s AZ602 from MXP and AZ610 from FCO arriving at JFK. My personal favorite was the Baci livery.
I think ITA has to do this in order to get approval for the LH buy-out. The EU wanted LH to drop some transatlantic routes in Muc&Ffm, LH said no, and this is the next best thing. I assume MXP/LIN will lose some more routes and most of the transcontinental traffic will be routed through Munich and Rome in the future.
I agree that the combination of Malpensa being far from the city and having most short haul connectivity at Linate has always been a major issue for ITA/Alitalia. I wonder if this route would be more sustainable for them if they flew from LIN to NYC instead. Aerolíneas Argentinas was able to launch AEP to MIA flights without issue so I wonder if there’s anything stopping ITA from doing the same here.
Interesting topic, Ben. Do you happen to have historical schedule and yields for NYC-MXP? It's interesting in various ways.
JFK-MXP has been a route long serviced by AAL. While they are not the most competitive out of NYC, AA hold onto this quite stably. I've heard it performs quite well thanks to the fashion industry and business links in general. If anything, I thought AA would've left ahead of UA/DL and AZ (pre-pandemic and...
Interesting topic, Ben. Do you happen to have historical schedule and yields for NYC-MXP? It's interesting in various ways.
JFK-MXP has been a route long serviced by AAL. While they are not the most competitive out of NYC, AA hold onto this quite stably. I've heard it performs quite well thanks to the fashion industry and business links in general. If anything, I thought AA would've left ahead of UA/DL and AZ (pre-pandemic and pre Alitalia bankruptcy).
I have also noticed that even for United next summer (peak), a high-J 763 is put on EWR-MXP instead of a 772. That'd be J46W22Y99 vs. J50W24Y202. While it represents similar premium seats, Y seats will drop by (more than) half. Is there any signal in this market, anchored by ITA exiting JFK-MXP?
Having said that, some might will even up-gauge to capture the demand.
ITA Operates Airbus A330-200's, no A330-300's
^ what he said, ITA doesn’t operate the A330-300. Only -200 and -900neo
This is not great news, but one of the most competitive routes out of the US.
Glad to see this will help La Compagnie and Delta.
Malpensa has on some level always had difficulty justifying its existence for Alitalia and ITA due to how far out of the way the airport is from central Milan. The Malpensa "Express" is a slow train that prods along getting into Milano Centrale, the train takes about an hour to get there. If the train ride was more like 25-30 minutes, more people would probably go out to Malpensa. But Malpensa also has to compete...
Malpensa has on some level always had difficulty justifying its existence for Alitalia and ITA due to how far out of the way the airport is from central Milan. The Malpensa "Express" is a slow train that prods along getting into Milano Centrale, the train takes about an hour to get there. If the train ride was more like 25-30 minutes, more people would probably go out to Malpensa. But Malpensa also has to compete with Linate for business travelers and Bergamo for leisure (Ryanair has a base there). Alongside the fact that ATM (Milan's transport authority) is investing into a new metro rail line that connects Linate to Central Milan ahead of the Olympics in 2026 and Bergamo is getting a rail connection to the national railway in the next year or two. Malpensa start to not look so hot other than for flying international outside Europe.
“What about corporate contracts and losing a key business route from Italy’s commerce center”
Beyond those it removes a reason for LIN fliers to stay loyal to ITA and associated revenue impact.
I’d take ITA biz any day over Emirates biz
EK stopped operating the route with the A380 and is now using the 777. Not sure how long there are planning to do so.
EK’s 777 J hard product isn’t anything to write home about, middle seats? No thanks. If anyone is opting for Emirates over any other carrier to MXP its price or A380 halo effect.
Thanks, added the Newark routes as well, since those should have been included. :-)
There are also multiple airlines from EWR to Malpensa as well, which can't be discounted on the competitive effect; especially in the premium cabin, with the capacity that La Compagnie places on the route.
The underlying problem is the political decision to keep ITA's hub in Rome, when it should be at Malpensa, as Milan is Italy's principal economic hub and could generate the most premium demand. Also, so long as Linate remains open, Milan will suffer from the same split airport issues that have bedeviled cities such as Tokyo and Buenos Aires.
Alitalia already tried that in 1998 and again in 2004, and was never able to extract the yield premium that MXP allegedly offers. Retreated back to FCO each time, leaving on a token presence in Milano.
There are examples where two hubs coexist well - e.g. FRA and MUC - but Italy ain't Germany...
The problem with Milan is not the co-existence with Rome, it is the split airport situation. AZ has no feeder traffic into MXP and from many medium sized cities in Northern Italy (e.g. Florence, Bologna) FCO is easier to reach by train than MXP, using the Freccia trains to Termini and from there FCO airport train. From Milano Centrale the train to MXP takes almost an hour ...
Could ITA ever have a Linate JFK route? If not, how about a JFk Linate route?
Is Linate set up from an immigration perspective to handle wide-body non-Schengen traffic? Legitimate question. Looks like the only non-Schengen flights they get are from Dublin and London.
Linate has a perimeter rule of 1,500km as well as a runway unable to handle transatlantic payloads
Maybe that is a way to exploit a loophole? Grant exceptions to the perimeter rule, like DCA has. The runway is about 8000 ft. long so JFK-LIN can be done but LIN-JFK would have payload restrictions with an A330.
BA used to have A318 service LCY-SNN-JFK. That's an idea for LIN! LIN-SNN-JFK and possibly JFK-SNN-LIN or JFK-LIN
There are flights from LIN to ARN which is almost 1.700 km. Either the perimeter is greater, or the rule is not enforced.
Linate is more like London City Airport or Raegan National than JFK or Malpensa. It's primarily an airport for inter-european flights to other European capitals.
Linate is only allowed to host intra-Europe service.
And why is that? Is it because of noise complaints by residents living near LIN, or?
Having built Malpensa (more modern and bigger airport, further from the city) Italian government wanted the traffic to move there from Linate. AFAIK after Malpensa opened the government wanted to only allow domestic flights at Linate. This was against EU-law, so flights within EU/EEA only were allowed and the number of available slots at Linate was heavily limited.
Also United and La Compagnie on this route (MXP-NYC) - so even more competition.
You forgot the U.S. market leader to Milan is United with 777 service from Newark
Not quite true. Delta operates 2x daily JFK-MXP during the summer (one A330-300 and one 763ER during summer 2023, and will be one A330-300 and one 764 during summer 2024). This winter, DL will be operating the 281-seat A330-900 compared with the 231 seat 764 by UA.