ITA Focusing On The Americas As Fleet, Network Grow

ITA Airways plans to operate 12 intercontinental destinations in winter 2023-24 across North and South America, Japan, and India as its fleet continues to grow.

The carrier experienced a strong summer. “We are very satisfied with the summer season, it was really above our expectations and targets,” Pierfrancesco Carino, VP of international sales at the carrier, told Aviation Daily in an Oct. 5 interview. 

The airline carried 4.2 million passengers with a load factor of 84% from June to August and during that summer period opened new routes to San Francisco and Washington from Rome Fiumicino. On intercontinental routes, ITA carried half a million passengers with a load factor of 87%. “North America was really performing well this summer. It’s our first market abroad with 122 weekly frequencies,” Carino said, noting that ITA also operates to Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and Miami.

The carrier will launch services to Rio de Janeiro Oct. 29, adding to current routes to Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. It also flies to New Delhi and Tokyo and will operate to the Maldives for the winter season.

In terms of its fleet, ITA has not experienced any of the delivery delays or operational or engine problems that have affected other carriers in recent months and is continuing to receive new aircraft after a large order placed in 2021.

“We have had a great operational performance with adding new aircraft,” Carino said. “In total this year we’re going to deploy 30 new aircraft.” The airline’s current, all-Airbus fleet numbers 77, with 17 long-haul and 60 short- and medium-haul aircraft. ITA is integrating an average of almost three aircraft per month into the fleet. 

“The flagship aircraft A350 and A330-900neo allow us to increase the penetration on the intercontinental routes, which is our main pillar on the network strategy,” Carino said. Elsewhere on long-haul, Japan is performing well, Carino said, with six weekly destinations. 

The carrier plans to reveal its full winter schedule later in October. Closer to home, the Italian carrier is seeking to bolster its network in France. “In France our target is really to have a solid schedule between France and Italy. We’ve been working really hard last year to have the best offer between Paris and Rome and Paris and Milan. For us it’s very important, with this schedule we’re able to address the corporate arena very well,” said Samy Addou, ITA’s country manager for France.

“Within Europe we have a large scope of destinations. From France focusing especially to the Mediterranean countries, Greece, Albania. And we’re trying to grow numbers to North Africa and to the Middle East, with Tel Aviv,” Addou said. 

Like other carriers, ITA sees a trend toward last-minute bookings from consumers, but that is balanced out by a significant proportion of demand from travel agents and tour operators, which allows the airline to plan ahead more easily. 

ITA already has rail/air partnerships in place in some markets, including Italy, Addou said, and France could be added to that list. “It’s not yet in France but we’re working on it,” he said. The French government has brought in legislation to prohibit flights on short domestic routes where a rail alternative exists.

German airline group Lufthansa agreed to buy a 41% stake in the Alitalia successor earlier in 2023, but the process is moving slowly at a European level. “We’re waiting for the green light from the European Commission antitrust,” Carino said. “As soon as we have the green light, we’ll build the next steps.” 

More broadly in Europe, Carino sees a growing trend toward airline consolidation, such as with Air France-KLM’s plan to partake in an almost-20% stake in Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and the Portuguese government’s formal launch of the TAP Air Portugal privatization process. 

“I think this is really a trend; European industry is going in this direction,” Carino said. “This is why in our industrial plan we planned to enter into a global partnership, in order to be more solid and have a clear long-term vision of putting clients at the center and being competitive.”