For all of Alitalia’s many problems, one area of the company that typically performed well was its network of routes to the U.S., operated for many years as a joint venture with Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines. Despite the ugly legacy of Alitalia, several parties expressed interest, enticed by the prospect of capturing Italy’s lucrative longhaul traffic to markets like North America. With ITA, the plan from the beginning was to privatize it as soon as possible. Officials subsequently shut the carrier down while passing some of its assets and employees to a new entity called ITA Airways.Īccording to Reuters, Alitalia - during the 11 years through 2020 - cost the Italian government nearly $11 billion to sustain. Not long after the start of the Covid crisis in 2020, Alitalia was back under full government control.

This too ended in tears - Alitalia would file bankruptcy for a second time in 2017. Faced with bankruptcy a few years later, Etihad Airways stepped in with a large investment. During the global financial crisis of 2008, Rome privatized Alitalia, with a quarter of the airline winding up in the hands of Air France-KLM. Year after year, the state-owned airline lost extraordinary sums of money, burdened by high costs, labor strife, political interference, and relentless low-fare competition.

Prior to creating ITA in 2021, Italy’s government searched in vain for decades for a solution to the problems that plagued ITA predecessor Alitalia. dollar-euro exchange rate, rising fuel costs, and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The company blamed heavy losses early in the year when Covid was still holding back travel demand, but also cited a worsening U.S. Italy’s state-owned ITA Airways unveiled a massive net loss for 2022, amounting to nearly half a billion U.S.

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