TOM GILL / LONDON
Italian 328JET operator switches to 737 in bid to reduce costs and lower ticket prices
Gandalf Airlines is to reinvent itself as a low-fares Boeing 737 operator flying to a string of national and international destinations from a single new base in northern Italy.
The four-year-old Italian regional jet operator operates from its base at Bergamo near Milan and four other airports - Pantelleria, Parma, Pisa and Trapani in Sicily - with seven Fairchild Dornier 328JETs and one 328 turboprop. For its new operation, it will relocate to Montechiari airport, halfway between Brescia and Verona in north-east Italy, and operate three 128-seat Boeing 737-500s leased from Germanair Flugzeug Leasing.
The three aircraft will join the fleet at the end of next month, and negotiations are under way for the lease of a further two Boeing 737-500s by September.
According to commercial director Jacopo Fusaia, the airline plans to dispose of four 328JETs this year, and retain the other three and its single 328 turboprop until 2004 when the 737 operation is in full swing. The 737-500s "will dramatically reduce the cost per seat compared with the Dorniers...we will be able to lower our fares and compete more aggressively in the market," says Fusaia, adding that the airline does not plan to become a no-frills carrier or fly to secondary airports.
Fusaia declines to provide a firm list of destinations, but the airline's wish list includes Lamezia Terme, Naples, Pisa, Rome and Trapani in Italy, and Barcelona, London, Madrid, Prague and Stockholm.
The airline says it is not aiming to provide an alternative northern Italian hub to Milan, but rather to capture traffic from the eastern part of Lombardy, western Veneto, Alto Aldige in the north and Emilia Romagna in the south, providing connections to major European cities and the under served southern regions of Calabria, Puglia and Sicily, says Fusaia.
Source: Flight International
