Alitalia (AZA, Rome Fiumicino) will add a maiden B777-300(ER) to its fleet next year airline vice chairman and Etihad Airways Group CEO, James Hogan, has said.
Outlining the progress made in the eighteen months since the Emiratis bought a 49% stake in the Italian carrier, Hogan said the focus for the next year was no longer just to break even, but to turn an actual profit.
“What we’ve said, we’ve delivered. The plan for 2017 was to break even. The only adjustment to the plan has been the fact that we want to make money in 2017," he was quoted by The National newspaper.
Alitalia has set itself the target of increasing its load factors to more than 80% from the current 76%, which Hogan described as “a fundamental threshold for any pan-European and global airline for its domestic market".
To that end, the carrier has been analyzing several potential new routes and, in order to match capacity to its expansion plans, will add a new B777-200(ER) - ex-Vietnam Airlines (VN, Hanoi Noi Bai International) airframe msn 28688 - to the fleet this year with the B777-300(ER) and an extra A330-200 to follow next year. Focus has been placed on markets in North and South America and the Far East, Hogan said.
“We have a view that Alitalia can go to forty long-haul aircraft," he added. “We have access to the aircraft through the partners – whether it is 787s, A350s or recycled A330s. We’ve already placed some aircraft in Alitalia, but we want to ensure we can feed the Italian hubs to improve the load factor and the quality."
Alitalia currently operates fourteen A330-200s (of which two are dry-leased from Etihad), and ten B777-200(ER)s.
