Andrea Spinelli/GENOA
ALITALIA IS FACING heavy competition on its prime domestic trunk route between Rome and Milan, following Milan-Linate Airport's award of additional slots to two new rival airlines.
The Italian flag carrier's woes are compounded, by its perpetual fight for financial stability, made harder by ongoing skirmishes with the unions over restructuring.
The Rome-Milan route is one of Europe's busiest, supporting more than 2 million passengers a year, carried by Alitalia on some 31 daily weekday frequencies from Rome-Fiumicino to Milan-Linate, and by Meridiana, which schedules four flights a day to Milan-Malpensa. Both airlines use the McDonnell Douglas MD-82.
Following a study into aircraft parking, SPA Esercizi Aeroportuali (SEA), the Milan airports company, suddenly discovered that it could offer an additional ten slots at peak hours, resulting in a mountain of airline applications to the Italian Civil Aviation Authority.
On 23 November, Air One began six daily flights between Fiumicino and Linate, using two Boeing 737-300s and one 737-200A, and is already planning to move to 13 flights a day from 8 January. Air One, the former Aliadriatica, is offering heavily discounted promotional fares.
Alitalia had already repositioned its Rome/Milan service in anticipation of competition, and is likely to wait and see how this shapes up before responding.
Noman, hitherto a charter airline, will start six daily flights to Linate around 20 December, using two McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15CFs. If successful, two MD-82s may be leased to replace the smaller jets. By January, there will be a total of 50 daily flights between Italy's two major cities, representing a near 50% increase in capacity from around 3.3 million seats to 4.8 million seats.
Source: Flight International
