# Italy Unveils Its New National Airline > Italy has launched ITA Airways, an airline with a completely Italian concept. We explain how the new national carrier hopes to wow the world. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/ytalyia-predstavliaet-svoiu-novuiu-natsyonalnuiu-avyakompanyiu/ - Language: en - Published: 2025-01-18 - Categories: Culture, Restaurants, Italy, Sports Events, Food & Drinks --- For a long time they ruled the worlds of food and fashion, this year they ruled sport, and now they have set their sights on the skies. Italy's new national airline, ITA Airways, took off on Friday with a promise to restore pride in the national carrier, after Alitalia, Italy's longtime airline, went bankrupt and ceased operations the day before. Executives laid out plans for the new network, aircraft, staff and livery at a press conference streamed live from Rome. The first thing to know: everything will be centopercento italiano. ITA Airways' new aircraft will be sky blue, and the crew will wear uniforms designed by Italy's finest. The interiors and airport lounges will be styled by top-tier Italian firms, and even the cars and shuttles used to get around the airport will be Italian. "We were born as a new Italian brand, and we decided to work only with Italian companies," said Alfredo Altavilla, ITA Airways' president. ## Riding a Wave of Sporting Triumph The sky blue livery, with the green, red and white stripes of the Italian tricolore on the tail and engines, is a tribute to the Azzurri, the Italian national sports teams that wear sky blue ("azzurro") when they compete. The Azzurri, of course, had a phenomenal year: the football team won the UEFA championship, and 40 medals were claimed at the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Italy's Matteo Berrettini reached the Wimbledon tennis final. According to Altavilla, this is exactly the kind of positive energy ITA wants to bring to the skies after Alitalia's collapse. "Today is the first day of a story still waiting to be written," he said. "The new branding and new livery on our aircraft are a symbol of that change, the start of a new adventure." Asked about staff uniforms, marketing director Giovanni Perosino said that while nothing had been announced yet, the airline was in talks with a "very important Italian brand" about designing them. "We want to give our customers an Italian experience, and when you think about modern Italy, it is rich and complex," he said. "So our dream is to work with companies across different industries, from food to the styling of the aircraft, the uniforms and the furniture in the lounges. Our vision is to draw on globally significant Italian brands. That is our wish, and we are already in talks with major brands." In the meantime, they will keep using Alitalia's uniforms and livery, though they expect to start repainting the planes within the first few months. The decision, he said, was made partly to save money. ## Alitalia Is No More ![](/storage/image/prev/september-article-image-39-1-2024.jpg) The news that the company would keep its original name, ITA Airways, surprised many who assumed it would want to carry on the Alitalia brand. In filings submitted to the US Department of Transportation to secure permission to fly there, it had acknowledged plans to acquire the Alitalia brand name. And on the eve of the airline's launch, it was announced that it had bought the Alitalia name for €90 million ($104 million), leading many to assume the new airline would essentially be the old one. Altavilla, however, said there was never any question of calling the airline Alitalia. "In my head it was always ITA Airways," he said. "But we were always very clear not only that we wanted to buy the Alitalia brand, but that we needed to. Not least for marketing reasons: an Italian brand could not belong to anyone other than the national carrier." ## A More Efficient Fleet Alitalia had been drowning in debt for years before the pandemic, but Altavilla said the future looks bright for ITA, calling the airline "right-sized" in terms of fleet, staff and routing alike. Its plan is to operate a fleet of new Airbus aircraft that are more efficient and less harmful to the environment. The first new planes will join the fleet in early 2022, and by the end of 2025, they say, 70% of the fleet will be next-generation aircraft. They plan to start with 52 aircraft and grow to 105 by 2025. ## Encouraging Smiles But Altavilla said the biggest difference would come in the onboard service. "On your first flight, I hope you will be greeted with a smile," he said. That was not always guaranteed from Alitalia's worn-out staff, but ITA has found a new way to inspire its employees: every staff member will have part of their salary tied not only to the company's profit but also to customer satisfaction. "This aligns the interests of the staff with the interests of the customers," he said. ITA already has a loyalty program, Volare, and it plans to join one of the major alliances, though Altavilla declined to say which one was preferable, saying all the offers were being evaluated. ## No More "Battery Chicken Farms" ![](/storage/image/prev/september-article-image-39-2-2024.jpg) Launching an airline during a pandemic is no small feat, especially with such a sad backstory. ITA rolled out an ad for the Italian public, telling them that just because things end badly, whether in love, in sport or in aviation, that should not stop people from trying again. Altavilla says that although the airline will be entering airspace already crowded with budget carriers, the competition does not worry him. "We are in different businesses. I carry people, and they run battery chicken farms," he said. He signaled that he would fight the subsidies paid by regional authorities to lure budget carriers into their airports. "All I am saying is that I want a level playing field. I do not want to start a race three minutes behind everyone else." And that is good news for Americans craving a little dolce vita in the skies: ITA is focusing on the North American market, said Emiliana Limosani, who oversees the commercial side, having decided that it is recovering the fastest after the pandemic. Rome to New York flights begin on November 4.