Alitalia to deepen partnership with Air France and Delta Air Lines

Italy’s national flag carrier Alitalia recently announced it has decided to strengthen its partnership with Delta Air Lines Inc. and Air France-KLM Group.

The airline in a statement said that by deepening the partnership with the two carriers Alitalia flights will be able to share costs and transatlantic revenue in an effort to increase its profits.

All the three carriers - Alitalia, Air France and Delta Air Lines – are SkyTeam alliance members.

According to Alitalia, the partnership with Air France and Delta Air Lines will help its pretax earnings to benefit by nearly $63 million (50 million Euros) annually within 2 or 3 years.

Rocco Sabelli, Chief Executive Officer of Alitalia, said that Alitalia will be able to gain significantly particularly from closer ties with Delta Air Lines.  

Sabelli said that it is only through joint ventures and alliances that will help keep Alitalia afloat and maintain investments and profit in the long term. He said that this is the only way forward for the airline. The partnership among the three airlines is aimed at providing 250 daily flights and will be covering 500 destinations in North America and Europe.