Despite the impact of the COVID-19 crisis during 2020, Alitalia says it will look to extend its heavy maintenance insourcing program and maintain investment.

The airline has been gradually bringing more maintenance work in-house, a strategy two of its maintenance leads detailed during a panel at Aviation Week Network’s MRO TransAtlantic virtual event on Oct. 29.

“We want to continue the project for this winter and we are working on a new business case for the next three years to continue the consolidation of our heavy maintenance activities and also for third parties,” says Antonella Del Gaizo, head of maintenance improvement and sales at the Italian flag carrier. “We will need to implement tools for this and invest in our facilities and the hiring of manpower.” 

The carrier is also seeing activity in its new aircraft teardown business, which it launched in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. During the summer months, it saw requests from several airlines looking to offload aircraft from their fleets. 

“This is a period in which a lot of aircraft are being retired, so during summer we received requests for the teardown of an Airbus A340 that had been released by an African airline,” says Vincenzo Quaranta, head of engineering and maintenance marketing and sales at Alitalia. “This was for the dismantling of the aircraft, certification of the removed parts and disposal of the aircraft carcass.” 

Quaranta adds that it is also receiving requests for dismantling narrowbody aircraft. “We received a request to receive two older A321 aircraft just a few days ago, for which we are capable to do all services starting from the removal of components, certification and dismantling and disposal of the aircraft.”