LONDON – New Italian airline ITA Airways has today announced a partnership with German Airways for a wet-lease agreement on routes from Milan Linate, to London City, Luxembourg, and Geneva. The flights will operate from Milan Linate – London City route with three flights a day from Mondays to Fridays, one flight on Saturdays, and two flights on Sundays. Flights will then be departing from Linate at 07:00 a.m., 12:20 p.m., and 5:40 p.m., and from London City at 08:25 a.m., 01:45 p.m., and 7:05 p.m. for a total of 36 round-trip flights a week.
The services will be operated by German Airways Embraer E190 aircraft and will fly with the label “operated by ITA Airways” attached to the flight tag. Currently, ITA Airways is expecting to service these routes with their own aircraft, when they take delivery of their first A220’s later this year, the A220-100 is one of only a handful of commercial airliners that are capable of landing at London City airport due to its step approach path, the only other Airbus aircraft certified for this approach was the A318, of which British Airways used to operate two specially modified versions from Business class only flights from London City to New York via Cork.
This announcement today marks an important stepping stone in ITA’s long-term business plans and growth path, with the expansion of these services so early into the airline’s operations allowing the company to generate additional value, while also encouraging more growth and travel options for its customers.
ITA Airways is the birth child of the bankrupt and failed Alitalia and the new owners will be sure that they make a decision as they have here today to look at more extensive options for route expansions outside of the regularly planned move by Alitalia in the past, which opened up service and expanded the airlines fleet size quickly, something which can be detrimental to the growth of an airline, Norwegian Air is a perfect example of this.
Flights are now on sale on the ITA Airways channels for the 2022 summer season and this announcement today marks an important step in the right direction for the new airline as it looks to rebuild the damaged Italian aviation market, which is still stung by the failures of Alitalia and Air Italy.
