(CNN) — They’ve lengthy dominated the meals and style worlds, this 12 months they’ve dominated sports activities, and now they’re aiming for the skies.
Italy’s new nationwide airline, ITA Airways, launched on Friday with a promise to convey satisfaction again to its nationwide flag provider, after Alitalia, Italy’s legacy airline, went bankrupt and ceased operations a day earlier.
Executives unveiled plans for the brand new community, airplanes, staffing and livery at a press convention livestreamed from Rome.
The very first thing to know: the whole lot will probably be centopercento italiano.
The brand new ITA Airways planes will probably be coloured sky-blue, with workers carrying uniforms by prime Italian designers.
Interiors and airport lounges will probably be dressed by high-class Italian companies, and even the automobiles and minibuses used to maneuver across the grounds will probably be Italian.
“We have now been born as a brand new Italian model, and we now have chosen to work solely with Italian corporations,” stated Alfredo Altavilla, president of ITA Airways.
Using excessive on sporting triumph
The sky-blue livery, full with inexperienced, pink and white tricolore stripes of the Italian flag on the tail and on the engines, is a homage to the Azzurri, Italy’s nationwide sports activities groups, who put on sky blue (“azzurro”) strips throughout competitions.
The Azzurri have, in fact, accomplished phenomenally effectively this 12 months, with the soccer crew successful the UEFA European championships and 40 medals on the Tokyo Summer time Olympics. Italian Matteo Berrettini was the runner up within the Wimbledon tennis ultimate.
That, in accordance with Altavilla, is the constructive vitality ITA needs to convey to the skies after the failure of Alitalia.
“At the moment is the primary day of a historical past that has but to be written,” he stated.
“The brand new branding and the brand new livery of our planes are an emblem of that change, of the beginning of a brand new journey.”
In response to CNN’s query about workers uniforms, Chief Advertising and marketing Officer Giovanni Perosino stated that though nothing has been introduced but, the airline is in talks with “a vital Italian model” about the potential of designing them.
“We need to give our purchasers an Italian expertise, and if you consider up to date Italy, it’s wealthy and complicated,” he stated.
“So our dream is to associate with corporations from varied disciplines, from the meals to the styling of the plane, to the uniforms to the furnishings within the lounges. Our imaginative and prescient is to make use of globally essential Italian manufacturers. It’s our want, however we’re already speaking with massive manufacturers.”
Within the meantime, they may maintain utilizing the Alitalia uniforms and livery, though they count on the planes to start out being repainted inside the first few months. The choice is partly to economize, he stated.
Alitalia no extra
Alfredo Altavilla, president of ITA Airways, on the airline launch.
Handout/ITA Airways
The information that the corporate would maintain its authentic title of ITA Airways shocked many who assumed it will need to maintain the Alitalia model going. In paperwork filed to the US Division of Transport to request permission to fly there, it admitted plans to accumulate the Alitalia model title.
And the night time earlier than the airline launch, it was introduced that it had purchased the Alitalia title for €90 million ($104 million), main many to take a position that the brand new airline would, primarily, be the previous one.
Nevertheless, Francavilla stated there had by no means been any query of branding the airline as Alitalia.
“In my head it’s at all times been ITA Airways,” he stated.
“However we have been at all times very clear not simply that we needed to purchase the Alitalia model, however that we would have liked to. Not least for advertising and marketing causes — the Italian model couldn’t belong to anybody else besides the nationwide flag provider.”
A extra environment friendly fleet
Alitalia was drowning in debt for years earlier than the pandemic, however Francavilla stated that the long run is vibrant for ITA, calling the airline “right-sized” each when it comes to fleet, staffing and routing.
It’s plan is to function a fleet of recent Airbuses, that are each extra environment friendly and fewer damaging to the atmosphere.
The primary new jets will enter the fleet in early 2022, and by late 2025, it says that 70% of the fleet will probably be new-generation plane.
It plans to start out with 52, and improve to 105 by 2025.
Incentivizing smiles
However Francavilla stated the largest distinction is about to be the service onboard.
“In your first flight, I hope you’ll discover a smile,” he stated. That wasn’t at all times a given from Alitalia’s beleaguered workers, however ITA has discovered a novel approach to invigorate staff: each single worker could have part of their wage linked not solely to the corporate income, but additionally to buyer satisfaction.
“It aligns the pursuits of the workers with the purchasers,” he stated.
ITA already has a loyalty program, Volare, and it plans to hitch one of many main alliances — although Francavilla wouldn’t be drawn on which one was favored, saying all affords have been being valued.
No extra ‘battery hen farms’
Alitalia folded on October 14 after years of economic woes.
Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Photographs
Beginning an airline in a pandemic is not any imply feat, particularly with the unhappy historical past that has gone earlier than it. ITA has unveiled an advert for the Italian public, telling them that issues ending badly — whether or not in love, sport or aviation — shouldn’t cease folks from making an attempt once more.
Francavilla says though the airline will probably be coming into an airspace already crowded with low-cost carriers, he wasn’t apprehensive about competitors. “We’re working completely different companies. I fly folks and so they fly battery hen farms,” he stated.
He signaled that he could be combating the subsidies paid by regional authorities to tempt lowcost carriers to their airports.
“All I’m saying is that I need a degree enjoying discipline — I don’t need to run a race beginning three minutes after the others.”
And it’s excellent news for People in search of some dolce vita within the skies — ITA is specializing in the north American market, stated Emiliana Limosano, in command of the business aspect, having determined it’s taking off quickest post-pandemic. Rome to New York flights begin November 4.
