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ITA Airways’ Airbus A350 Draws Crowd During Italian Grand Prix Flyover

ITA Airways Airbus A350 and Frecce Tricolori fly over the Monza Autodrome. (Photo: Mattia Cosmai | thecosmaspotter)

An Airbus A350-900 from Italy’s national airline, ITA Airways, flew over the skies of Monza on Sunday for its first flight. After dedicating its first Airbus A350s to Valentino Rossi, Marcello Lippi, Roberto Baggio and Enzo Bearzot, the latest arrival was dedicated to Enzo Ferrari, founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque.

The new Airbus A350 with ITA Airways’ classic light blue livery made its first flight at Monza at the Italian Grand Prix, accompanied by nine Aermacchi MB.339 A/PAN MLU of the Frecce Tricolori at the start of the race, flying over the starting grid while the Italian national anthem was being sung by Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli.

This is a historic event, as it is the first time the Italian national airline has been present at the Italian Grand Prix, and the first during which the Frecce Tricolori have performed together with an airliner.

The event was made possible by Enzo Ferrari’s son, Eng. Piero Ferrari (Ferrari’s vice president) to Eng. John Elkann (Ferrari’s president) and the management team of the Italian car company founded in Maranello in the province of Modena.

The name Enzo Ferrari, was written on a red background on the blue livery of the ITA Airways aircraft, an exclusive detail among all the aircraft in the fleet, which instead have the name of the personage to whom the aircraft is dedicated on a blue background.

This is the fourth aircraft in ITA Airways’ fleet that, on the occasion of the Italian Grand Prix, has a new blue livery with the Logo of the 100th Anniversary Celebrations of the Monza Autodrome (1922-2022), founded on Sept. 3, 1922. This Airbus A350 joins three other aircraft that the Italian flag carrier has dedicated to individuals who have written the history of Italian motor racing, namely the A330 named after Tazio Nuvolari, and two Airbus A319s named after Alberto Ascari and Michele Alboreto.

In the past few days, an Airbus A350 in the white livery of ITA Airways, which arrived from the airline’s hub airport Rome Fiumicino, had carried out tests ahead of the overflight at the Monza GP together with two aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori at Milan Linate airport.

The Italian airline had chosen in recent months to lease six Airbus A350 long-haul aircraft to complete the modernization of its fleet and thus pursue the green goal of reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by 25 percent. These aircraft have become the symbol of ITA Airways’ fleet and are used for intercontinental routes, mainly to North America.

Vincenzo Claudio Piscopo
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  • Vincenzo Claudio Piscopo

    Vincenzo graduated in 2019 in Mechanical Engineering with an aeronautical curriculum, focusing his thesis on Human Factors in aircraft maintenance. In 2022 he pursued his master's degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Palermo, Italy. He combines his journalistic activities with his work as a Reliability Engineer at Zetalab.

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