DAT - Danish Air Transport (Kolding) has been awarded a EUR38.6 million euro (USD47.6 million) Public Service Obligation (PSO) contract in southern Italy for flights connecting the islands of Pantelleria and Lampedusa with airports in Sicily.
According to the records of the Italian civil aviation authority (Ente Nazionale per l'Aviazione Civile - ENAC), the contract will run from July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2021.
The PSO covers routes out of Pantelleria to each of Trapani (14x weekly), Palermo International (14x weekly, growing to 17x weekly in the peak season), and Catania (2x weekly), as well as from Lampedusa to each of Trapani (18x weekly, growing to 28x weekly in the peak season) and Catania (3x-7x weekly). The only other bidder was currently inactive Romanian operator FlyValan (Bucharest Henri Coanda).
DAT has earlier said that it is mulling establishing an Italian subsidiary to manage the PSO operations once the tender is awarded to the carrier.
Currently, the PSO routes covering Lampedusa and Pantelleria are operated by Mistral Air (Rome Fiumicino).
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, DAT currently operates four A320-200s, two ATR 42-320s (including one in QC variant), one ATR 42-500, four ATR 72-200s, one ATR 72-500 (on wet-lease for Air Nostrum), and one MD-83. The company also expects a delivery of one MD-82 soon and wet-leases one Saab 340A from DOT LT. The company's current scheduled network covers mostly domestic routes in Denmark and Norway, as well as some flights between the two countries.
