Alitalia considering a return to Australia

[777]

Looks like Etihad, Alitalia and potentially VA may be cooperating on a return to Australia. Seems the motivating factor is that Etihad are running out of landing rights in Australia and this neatly gets around that.

"A Rome based AZ executive has exclusively revealed to Airline Hub Buzz “We are currently looking at returning to either Melbourne or Sydney from either Rome or Milan. Flights will be co-ordinated conjunction with Etihad and will be designed to offer maximum connectivity with Rome, EY’s European stations and as well our new Milan and Venice services via Abu Dhabi. Plans are in the early stages and more information will be made available once we have finalised a schedule for Australia. Co-operation of some kind with Virgin Australia is also being looked at.”


The source further informed the aircraft type would most likely be a 777-200ER sourced from AZ’s fleet or possibly a lease arrangement with an EY 777-300ER with the aircraft in AZ colours."


http://www.airlinehubbuzz.com/alital...an-services/#.VHu-nW4FyTo.facebook

Not an airline that i hold in much regard but there's a loyal Italian Australian community here, it's a popular country and with feed in Australia, AUH and Italy it might work. Thoughts?

 

[RooFlyer]

Looks like Etihad, Alitalia and potentially VA may be cooperating on a return to Australia. Seems the motivating factor is that Etihad are running out of landing rights in Australia and this neatly gets around that.

Not an airline that i hold in much regard but there's a loyal Italian Australian community here, it's a popular country and with feed in Australia, AUH and Italy it might work. Thoughts?

Doesn't do much for me; if I needed to fly to Rome for business, I'm pretty sure I would take a *A or 1W option, with a stop. But as you say, local community probably would produce decent loadings, especially as EK my be ?? subsidising? the service.

 

[UP4014]

Used them once, wouldn't bother to use them again. The Larry Moe and Curly of the airline world.


Matt

 

[samh004]

That's one reason to buy another airline (its slots)!

 

[Timba-Jet]

Perhaps would be attractive to Skyteam loyal customers, though unlikely to be many in Australia, though there is always the Chinese carriers or KLM/AF codeshares.

For me CX would be my preferred choice to get to Italy. QF/EK then maybe AY too.

 

[Dalescott]

Just think of those sexy Italian FA's MMMMMM. Time to call the travel agent.

 

[Programme]

AZ to Australia?

Taking on CX, SQ, TG, CZ, MU, CA, EK and QR head on? Tell 'em they're dreamin'. The existing midpoint carriers have every possible combination of fare, experience and stopover port covered already. AZ brings nothing to the table.

 

[samh004]

AZ to Australia?

Taking on CX, SQ, TG, CZ, MU, CA, EK and QR head on? Tell 'em they're dreamin'. The existing midpoint carriers have every possible combination of fare, experience and stopover port covered already. AZ brings nothing to the table.

Isn't it less about a new carrier coming to market and more about a way EY can get around the issue of their limited slots? The flights would likely be heavily codeshared EY/VA...

 

[amaroo]

For me CX would be my preferred choice to get to Italy.

+ 1 Just about to pull the trigger for some award seats in the next week or so..

 

[Programme]

Isn't it less about a new carrier coming to market and more about a way EY can get around the issue of their limited slots? The flights would likely be heavily codeshared EY/VA...

I had a quick gloss over the text of the Air Services Agreement with the UAE trying to find the limits, but this isn't an hour conducive to critical analysis of legalese...

Anyway, if EY needs more capacity to Abu Dhabi, they have a more convenient partner in the region that can use the available capacity at the other end of that Air Services Agreement: it's called VA.

 

[dajop]

Anyway, if EY needs more capacity to Abu Dhabi, they have a more convenient partner in the region that can use the available capacity at the other end of that Air Services Agreement: it's called VA.

Who are in turn co-owned by another carrier who may not want EY to so easily add defacto services to Europe. They are called SQ.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Who are in turn co-owned by another carrier who may not want EY to so easily add defacto services to Europe. They are called SQ.

And who dont have the aircraft

 

[whatmeworry]

Not an airline that i hold in much regard but there's a loyal Italian Australian community here, it's a popular country and with feed in Australia, AUH and Italy it might work. Thoughts?

Most Italians are second, third generation these days but you do have some older Italians but most don't care about travelling on the national carrier as long the airline they travel on is good value for money. Altough 20 thousand young Italians emigrated to Australia for work last year and their are plenty of Italian FA's on Emirates.

I do know the Greeks think their airlines are a joke.
[video=youtube;BhtCR6AAwes]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhtCR6AAwes[/video]

 

[Bolthead]

Just stumbled onto this... old news with a bit more info.


Rebooted Alitalia Makes First Flight | TravelPulse

 

[vmile]

EY buying AZ does not seem to make sense unless EY actually believe they can fix the basket case that AZ really is.

If so then it is an established airline with plenty of 'slots' in much more interesting places than here.

AZ- you currently cannot even do a seat selection on line, and no real FF program to speak of...so some 'easy' things to fix.

Breaking the staff costs will be a bit harder.As will fixing the bookkeeping.

Are EY's rights to here restricted by passenger numbers or number of flights per year? What happens when they start flying the A380s here?

This one will be good to watch, and a potentially a big advantage to those who use the VA FF program.