ITA Airways Revives Alitalia Brand

The power of a brand is one of the most difficult things to quantify in any business, and every company deciding to undergo a rebranding exercise always does it with a good dose of circumspection and fear. When the Italian flag carrier Alitalia decided to “retire” its brand in October 2021 as part of the salvage/takeover operation by Lufthansa there wasn’t much of a choice: operational discontinuity between the old and the new was a paramount need to get the approval from the European Commission so that the Italian Government could provide enough funds to convince the German carrier to take over the troubled Italian airline.

So the new ITA Airways brand was created, and the Alitalia brand, valued at 90 million Euros ($100.5m) during the liquidation procedure of the “old company,” was maintained by the new property and kept on ice.

On Friday, during a presentation of the financial results for the first six months of 2024 in Milan, ITA Airways announced the reappearance of the old Alitalia brand, a symbol that used to have value in the early days of the jet era and during the first years of air transportation for the masses.

The Alitalia brand will appear next to ITA Airways as “ITA, inspired by Alitalia,” the new official tagline of the company. The new combination of the two brands, which will now appear side by side, will be visible by the end of 2024 at some strategic touchpoints and will symbolize “Alitalia’s pioneering excellence in air transportation and its role as an extraordinary ambassador of Made in Italy in the world,” said ITA Airways Executive Chairman Antonino Turicchi.

Higher Revenues but Still No Profits

The first half of the year saw a total turnover of 1.4 billion Euros ($1.56b) with a positive EBITDA (Earnings Before Interests, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization) of 62 million Euros ($69.2m) against a negative EBITDA of 68 million Euros ($76m) for the first six months of 2023. The net operating loss is 140 million Euros ($156m), “but 50% of this loss is due to the unfavorable exchange rate between the Euro and the U.S. dollar,” said Chief Financial Officer Claudio Faggiani to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The E.U. Poses Conditions to Approve Takeover

The airline expects to complete the partial takeover by Lufthansa, which is scheduled to purchase a controlling 41% stake in Alitalia for 325 million Euros ($363m) on November 4, according to Turicchi. “There are no new requests from the European Commission and we continue working according to the latest timeline,” the Executive Chairman said to Italian Financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

The main condition to be satisfied by ITA-Lufthansa in order to get the green light from Brussels is to dispose of 30 slots at capacity-restricted Milan Linate airport, allowing for at least one new entrant to start competing with them on routes where ITA and Lufthansa would be operating as a monopoly. Other conditions include the disposal of more slots at Rome Fiumicino airport to allow more competition on certain routes and restrictions on the launch of new routes from Italy to the U.S. or Canada.

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Vanni Gibertini

Vanni fell in love with commercial aviation during his undergraduate studies in Statistics at the University of Bologna, when he prepared his thesis on the effects of deregulation on the U.S. and European aviation markets. Then he pursued his passion further by obtaining a Master’s Degree in Air Transport Management at Cranfield University in the U.K. followed by holding several management positions at various start-up carriers in Europe (Jet2, SkyEurope, Silverjet). After moving to Canada, he was Business Development Manager for IATA for nine years before turning to his other passion: sports writing.

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