Alitalia has joined the Air France-KLM Group and Delta Air Lines as a member of the airline industry’s leading trans-Atlantic joint venture. Launched in April 2009, the multi-party agreement created a single, coordinated network for customers flying across the Atlantic, allowing the member airlines to share revenues and costs on their trans-Atlantic routes.
Through the four-way joint venture, passengers have convenient access to the world’s largest trans-Atlantic network, which offers almost 250 flights and approximately 55,000 seats each day, now including 20 daily trans-Atlantic flights to five U.S. destinations from Rome and Milan Malpensa airports. With Alitalia’s addition, the joint venture represents approximately 26 percent of total trans-Atlantic capacity, with annual revenues estimated at more than $10 billion.
Rome joins Amsterdam, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York-JFK and Paris-CDG as the core hubs of the joint venture, with additional trans-Atlantic service from Cincinnati, Milan Malpensa, Memphis and Salt Lake City. Wherever traffic rights permit, the airlines offer customers codeshare service between the United States and the European Union, and in many cases beyond, creating one network for seamless airline-to-airline connections between points in North America and the European Union. The joint venture’s geographic scope includes all flights between North America and Europe, between Amsterdam and India and between North America and Tahiti.
Governance of the joint venture will be equally shared between Alitalia, the Air France-KLM Group and Delta. Alitalia representatives will immediately join the joint venture’s 11 working groups responsible for implementing and managing the agreement in the areas of network, revenue management, sales, product, frequent flyer, advertising/brand, cargo, operations, information technology, communications and finance. Alitalia also will be included in all joint venture initiatives, including joint sales contracts, which launched in January 2009.
Alitalia’s addition to the joint venture is effective April 1, 2010, as part of a long-term agreement effective until at least March 31, 2022. For more information, visit www.delta.com, www.klm.com, www.airfrance.com or www.alitalia.com.
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