A chapter in Italian aviation history ends this Thursday: the last flight of the Alitalia airline from Sardinia to Rome is due to fly late in the evening.
According to the plan, the machine from Cagliari will be expected at the capital’s airport Rome-Fiumicino at 11.10 p.m., an Alitalia spokesman said when asked. The line goes out of service with the last flight.
The new state airline Italia Trasporto Aereo (Ita) wants to take off on Friday. It is considered to be Alitalia’s successor, but according to the EU Commission it is not its economic successor. Brussels wants Ita to break with the troubled Alitalia past.
After 2002, the traditional airline no longer made a profit. Attempts to get the company back on its feet failed. In 2017 it went bankrupt and the Italian state took over.
This granted bridging aid in the amount of around 900 million euros – unlawful from the point of view of the competition watchdog in Brussels. During the corona pandemic, Alitalia was dependent on further millions in aid to keep its operations going.
The situation around the end of Alitalia and the planned start of Ita repeatedly caused resentment and anger among the more than 10,000 employees. The new company plans to start up with fewer staff, around 2800 employees, and initially 52 machines.
Many Alitalia employees can no longer be employed there. The result was protests and many canceled flights to the end. With the end, the Alitalia brand will also be sold. However, there have been no offers for the € 290 million offer so far.
The airline’s 74-year-old era ends with the last flight. According to the company, the first Alitalia aircraft took off on May 5, 1947 for flight on the Turin-Rome-Catania route.
The popes also flew with the airline. On his recent trip to Budapest, Pope Francis mentioned the end of Alitalia in his address to journalists. Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi said in April that he saw Alitalia as a kind of family, “a somewhat expensive family, but still a family”.