While waiting for updates on the Tribe under construction in Mestre, the partnership between the Accor group and Amapa, which is already behind the Veneto and other hotel projects in collaboration with the French company, continues to move ahead.

Next to Malpensa’s international terminal

In fact the Italian company will manage the new Tribe,which will be built in an area adjacent to the Milan Malpensa international terminal and is scheduled to open in Q4 2023. The news follows the announcement by Foruminvest Italia, which recently acquired an 11,500 square-metre site for a new hotel development within the Mxp business park and next to the Vodafone automotive headquarters.

Also in the pipeline a 102-room hotel on Lake Como

The hotel will have 240 rooms, including ten suites, a fitness centre, meeting rooms, a restaurant and a bar on the ground floor, a swimming pool on the panoramic terrace and parking for 130 cars some of which will be covered. Construction work on the facility is scheduled to begin in Q2 2022. In Italy Foruminvest is also developing a 102-room five-star hotel in a scenic location in the charming lakeside town of Menaggio on Lake Como.

Fiumicino airport in Rome gets a new boarding area. The new facility, inside Terminal 1, will open to the public on 19 May and will be on three floors, covering 37,000 square metres.

With up to 23 new boarding gates, the number of passengers transiting the capital’s main airport is expected to increase by more than six million annually.

Fiumicino wins its 5th Airport Service Quality Award

The new Fiumicino Airport A Pier has a large concourse with premises for food and retail outlets. Primarily lit by natural light. it also has nursery services, a business area, photovoltaic systems. Holding all the major international environmental and eco-sustainability certifications, makes it one of the facilities which has earned the Airport Service Quality Award for the fifth consecutive year for Leonardo da Vinci Airport.

New jobs in and serving the airport

Investment in the new facility totalled nearly €400 million, and 100 new jobs are planned, including cleaning staff, handling services, and passenger assistance. At least 10,000 jobs are also planned in the industries and services that revolve around the new pier, such as shops, airport services, and tour operators.

EasyJet has added Amsterdam to its network from Pisa: the new summer route is already operational three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

This brings to seven the number of destinations available to passengers departing from Pisa airport.

Many new European flights

The EasyJet Amsterdam flights are in fact in addition to the new flights already announced for the next summer season, thanks to which, from the Tuscan airport it will be possible to fly to some of the most fascinating European destinations: London (both Gatwick and Luton), Paris Orly, Berlin, Manchester and Bristol.

Growth is up 534% over summer 2021

Seventeen years after the first Paris-Pisa flight, which took off on 30 March 2005, about 7.5 million passengers have travelled with easyJet through the Tuscan airport. Today EasyJet - with 450 thousand seats offered and a growth of 534% compared to the summer of 2021 - confirms its commitment to the Tuscan city, positioning itself as the second busiest airline at the San Giusto airport this summer.

“The new flights consolidate the fruitful collaboration with easyJet” 

"The new flights to Amsterdam expand the network of Toscana Aeroporti connections,  consolidating the fruitful collaboration with easyJet - said Marco Carrai, President of Toscana Aeroporti – and it is great satisfaction and confidence for the future that we now link Pisa and Tuscany with one of the most important cities in Europe and the world.”

Jet2.com is getting ahead of the game and introducing flights from Newcastle Airport to Verona this summer. The weekly services to the Venetian city will be operated every Wednesday from 10 May 2023 until the end of September.

Holiday packages include airport transfers

With this addition, Jet2.com's network of summer destinations from Newcastle rises to 125, of which 34 are purely sunshine' destinations. In addition to the flight-only options, holiday packages are available with Jet2CityBreaks. These include flights, 22 kilos of checked baggage, transfers to and from the airport and a choice of 2 to 5-star hotels.

“Verona is a fantastic city break and close to Lake Garda”

"The demand for flights, city breaks and holidays from Newcastle Airport continues to be extremely strong," says Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays. "The introduction of Verona to our operations this summer offers a fantastic city break option for those who want to visit a city packed with history, culture and beauty with the added benefit of having beautiful Lake Garda close by."

There’s something new happening in air transport in Italy. Yes, once again someone is trying to launch a new Italian airline. Name: Aeroitalia. Colours: the traditional Italian colours which are, inevitably, the old Alitalia white, red and green. Network: initially focused on charters, but already looking at long-haul flights - from South America to the United States.

"We are the rebirth of air transport in Italy" says German Efromovich, Aeroitalia’s president and chief investor (together with French partner Marc Bourgarde), a well-known face in the world of aviation and, among other things, a former owner of Avianca. With an initial fleet of six B737-800s which will grow with B787 Dreamliners for intercontinental flights, the challenge is certainly not be an easy one as the debut coincides with the end of the Covid-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine, which for many is putting a damper on travel.  Then there are the precedents - all unsuccessful despite the different business models and industrial plans - from Air Italy to Blue Panorma, which then became Luke Air.

So if anyone is bored by the tittle-tattle surrounding the former Alitalia, now Ita Airways, and its immediate future (probably with the MSC-Lufthansa group) they now have a new adventure to follow.

We wish the newborn company all the best: happy landings Aeroitalia!

Mariella Cattaneo
Journalist

Wizz Air launched its’s new Bari-Abu Dhabi route on 27 March.  The flight will be operated twice weekly on Tuesdays and Saturdays up to the last Sunday of October 2022. These new flights to the capital of the United Arab Emirates - explains a note of Aeroporti di Puglia – replace the Wizz Air flights operated since 26 February to Dubai.

The load factor on the route has been 73%

"Our strategic plan - said Antonio Maria Vasile, president of Aeroporti di Puglia – is to extend our network of direct connections to market areas of great interest from northern Europe to the Middle East. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are two strategic hubs for connecting flights to the Far East and Oceania. The Apulia Region and Wizz Air have been working together on this ambitious project, and so far about 2,500 passengers have been carried, equal to a load factor of 73%,  and showing it was a wise choice”.   

Finnair will connect Helsinki with six Italia airports this summer and will have a full summer 2022 schedule of  some 70 European, five North American and eight Asian destinations.

Having updated its operations following the closure of Russian airspace, which impacted air traffic to Asia, the Finnish airline confirms its two flights to Milan Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino, which are joined by four other seasonal flights to Bologna, Verona, Venice and Naples.

Flights to Europe and North America

"We continue to serve our main Asian destinations, even though our long-haul flights are affected by the closure of Russian airspace. We also have an excellent range of flights to Europe and North America," says Ole Orvér, CCO of Finnair.

Flights also to Venice, Bologna, Naples and Verona

The Italian network includes daily flights to Milan and Rome, daily services to Venice, flights to Bologna four times a week (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays), to Naples twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and finally three weekly flights to Verona  on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

A new Dallas Fort Worth route

On 27 March, Finnair opened a new route to Dallas Fort Worth, operating four weekly flights and with full connectivity to the American Airlines network in the United States. Another new route, to Seattle, opens on 1 June with three weekly flights. The carrier also operates daily to JFK New York and Chicag,o and to Los Angeles three times a week. In addition, Finnair has daily flights from Stockholm Arlanda to New York JFK, and Los Angeles flights four times weekly.

Ita Airways' long-haul summer season is ready to kick into full swing with new direct Milan Malpensa-New York JFK flights that started on 2 April.

An Airbus A330-200 operates the new JFK flights every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. The A330-200 has three classes, Business, Premium Economy and Economy, and the highest standards of service in line with traditional Italian hospitality.

The aim is to total 42 weekly US flights

The Malpensa flights join the route already operating to New York JFK from Rome Fiumicino, and those from Rome to Miami and Boston that were launched in March. The new Malpensa-New York route consolidates the airline’s expansion in the United States which, after Italy, is the most strategically important market for the national airline. The aim is to total 42 weekly flights between the United States and Italy by August this year.

New intercontinental routes

Ita Airways' 2022 summer season includes 64 new destinations, 23 of which are domestic, 34 international and seven intercontinental. The expansion of the intercontinental network will continue in the coming months with the opening of new flights from Rome Fiumicino to Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Sau Paulo and Tokyo.

Once upon a time there was a route called MiMa, short for Milan-Manhattan, operated by Eurofly, an Italian airline with business class-only flights from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other. On board the Airbus A319 there were just 48 seats, exclusive service and a Campari to sip (the drinks company was a partner). The experiment was not a success and was dropped after just six months. But that was 2006... They were other times. And other planes… 

Now, starting on 15 April, the French La Compagnie is betting on all-business flights between the Big Apple and the Italian fashion capital. A 100% smart Business Class. And the step from Campari to champagne is a done deal! The aircraft is an A321neo with 76 seats in a 2-by-2 cabin configuration that guarantees maximum comfort with fully reclining seats and state-of-the-art entertainment on the 15'7" screen.

Premium service is guaranteed from check-in to landing, or even earlier as you can book a chauffeur-driven car transfer to and from the airport where you have access to lounges in which to relax or work before your flight. The culinary experience will also be unique, with gourmet menus created by celebrity chefs from New York and Paris and, of course, from Italy for the menus on flights departing Milan.

The only thing left to do now is to see if La Compagnie can snag a market share on the Milan-New York route, which has always been a favourite with carriers both US and not - from American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines to Ita Airways, Neos and Emirates - on which there is no shortage of premium fares.

Mariella Cattaneo
Journalist